


Like a Mynock out of Hell

by queerahsoka



Series: Carbonite Dreams [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Mandalorian Culture, Mando'a, NaNoWriMo 2018, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, basically entirely about oc's, cool butch who knows how to drive, hard of hearing character, scarif and yavin from the point of view of a raw recruit, teenagers who are in over their heads and don't know whats going on, the dregs of the rebellion, with a few cameos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2019-08-27 21:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16710355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerahsoka/pseuds/queerahsoka
Summary: Adega is eighteen, a pilot, adrift in a galaxy where she doesn't find much kindness. The Galactic Empire dominates known space, and she and others like her have taken up arms against the Imperial Army, hoping to overthrow the corrupt regime. Six months ago she was just a smuggler. Now, she's headed into battle over the space above the planet Scarif. Will she die? Probably. It is worth it to her? Definitely.





	1. Chapter 1

_Deep in the jungles of Akiva, far from the bustling city streets and spaceports, a young girl clad in scratched and rusted armor runs downhill along a dirt path. She's small, this girl. Eight standard years old. Her armor is scrapped together out of discarded pieces of beskar'gam left around the ship by older members of her clan. Her ill-fitting helmet slips to one side as she rockets through the thick trees. Her breath is fast, her palms sweaty, her boots hit the ground with a thud after each long step. She runs deeper into the forest, away from the city of Myrra, as fast as her short legs can take her. She fears it isn't fast enough._

  
_She almost trips over herself and falls into the creek as she reached the bottom of the steep hill. She steps into the shallow water, trickling over her clunky leather boots, as the rocks below her feet settle. She looks at the canopy of trees above. At the top of the next hill. She flips down her range finder for a better view, but finds that the camouflage of the forest is too thick. She takes a deep breath and starts running again, faster than before, up the next hill. She doesn't look over her shoulder as she goes._

  
_The young girl has been at this for half an hour now. Running from just outside the city to the depths of the jungle, but still hasn't reached her destination. Uphill she goes, her heart just about beating out of her chest. She tries and fails to convince herself she isn't scared. It isn't very Mandalorian of her, she thinks, but she's always scared in times like these, though she isn't new to it. A job went south, and she did as she was told. Ran into the jungle towards a prearranged spot while the rest of the clan dealt with the situation at hand. She was too young for fighting. She'd been told that a million times. Usually she would disagree, insisting she was as much a warrior as anyone else on this ship! But right now she agreed. She was scared. She was scared she'd been followed. She was scared buir or one of the others had been hurt. The young girl didn't want to be a warrior right now. She wanted her buir to pick her up in the ship and fly them off into space. She takes a deep breath and quickens her pace, running upward through the thick foliage. Keep going, she tells herself._

  
_At the top of the hill she looks down, no sign of pursuers. No sign of anyone. She holds her wrist com up to her helmet and taps at it again. Nothing but static comes though. She changes frequencies. Still, all she can hear is static and the sounds of the jungle around her. She rapidly flips through frequencies, just in case, hoping against hope that her clan is safe. She's about to cut the signal when a voice crackles through the speaker._

  
_"-gar eyaytir ?" The voice says. The little girl smiles, for no one else would be speaking Mando'a on this wold. She holds down the transmit button "Elek! Elek! Vaii cuy gar?" She breathes into it, not even bothering to keep her voice down._  
  
_"Sha te bral." Buir said through the static. "vaii cuy gar?"_  
  
_"I'm almost there." She answered back in basic, her accent sounding harsh around the words, even in such a young voice._  
  
_"Be safe, adi'ka." Buir spoke back at her. "I'm on the hill above. I'll come meet you at the bral. Will you be okay?"_  
  
_"Elek, buir." She shut the com channel and scoped the area. Nothing was out of the ordinary, yet. She broke back into a run, fast as she could go, to reach the west ridge. That's where buir was, with the ship, just above the clearing they'd made their meeting spot before they'd gone down into Myrra to do business._  
  
_She lept off a rock and into a grove of Asuka trees. She wasn't far now. Buir's position was only a few clicks from here. Even with her helmet, the shade of the trees made it hard to see where she was going. The young girl clutched one hand around the knife at her hip and the other against her stomach as she ran. She was exhausted, but she couldn't stop yet. Her breaths got shallower with each step she took. The inside of her lopsided helmet fogged slightly. She could feel sweat as it dripped down her back. Almost there. Almost there, she repeated like a mantra to herself._  
  
_The west ridge was in her sights now, and she ran faster than she even knew she could to get to it. Stumbling as she went, she rushed into the clearing where buir would be waiting. As soon as she got there, she fell to her knees, out of breath._  
  
_"Ad'ika, this is no time for rest." The voice from the com said. The young girl smiles. Tears welled in her eyes as she looked up at the rocks above her and sees buir standing their, hands on her hips, fully clad in her colorful Mandalorian armor "Good thing I'm your mother. If I was a stormtrooper..." Buir clicks her tongue, activating her jetpack to float down to where the small warrior lay crumpled on the ground. "But let's not think about that, elek?" She says as she approaches. The young girl throws her arms around her mother._  
  
_"Can we go now?" She asks through shaky breaths._  
  
_"The ship is just up the hill. Can you run anymore?"_  
  
_"I think so."_  
  
_"Alright, Ad'ika. Then let's go." Buir holds her hand out to her small daughter, who takes it and stands up._  
  
_They were going to make it out of this one alive, as the clan had done so many times before. Life had been like this ever since her mother had taken a contract from the Trandoshan, Kyzzaq. He'd asked her to bring him the head of an ISB officer stationed on Kerev Doi, and a datafile of the information on his personal datapad. She'd done it, but ever since then they had been on the run, trying to find a safe place to exchange datafile for credits. Looks like Akiva was not the place._

  
_Such was the life of a mercenary, and the young girl loved it. She knew that not all Mandalorians lived this way. Many have given up the warrior life, dar'manda, as the clan elders called them. Many others served the Empire which was almost worse. Her clan was neither. They were the outliers, who still held onto their culture, but didn't fall in line with Death Watch and whatever came after it. They were nomadic. The roved the galaxy, working as mercs. Or, rather, the grown ups did that. The little warrior hadn't gotten the chance yet. But she would. Someday, she'd be the best fighter her clan had ever seen._

  
_She braced herself for the journey back to the ship. Her muscles sore, her feet blistered. Once they got to the ship, she could rest. Hyperspace was safe, planetside wasn't. Soon they'd be off to the next planet, space station, adventure. But not quite yet. She took a deep breath and followed her mother as she broke into a run. They ran past the edge of the clearing, and stopped._

  
_The night sky had turned into day._

  
_The young girl turned around. Her mother took off her helmet and looked right into her eyes, somehow knowing just where they were even through the visor. There was a wild grin across her face._

  
_"That would be the Imperials." Her mother says. The young girl glances only for a moment back into the clearing. A shuttle was landing where they had just stood._   
_"What are we going to do?" The young girl asks. Her mother's smile widened and she put her helmet back on._

  
_"Oh, my Ad'ika. Ib'tuur jatne tuur ash'ad kyr'amur." She spoke as she pulled her rifle off her back, and turned to walk towards the landing sight. The old Mandalorian proverb, Today is a good day for someone else to die._

 

 

***

 

 

Adega Ijaakara awoke to the familiar buzzing against her skull. She pawed around under her pillow for the old datapad and shut it off. Her hearing was nearly half gone, and the morning announcements over the com wouldn't wake her like they used to. So, the datapad, which served little purpose besides having an alarm and working chrono. 0600 hours. She groaned and rubbed her eyes. Technically, she was allowed to sleep for another hour, but tensions were high. Things weren't right on Yavin Base. Adega wanted to be ready for anything, be that sudden death or the call to action. It was about a fifty fifty chance of either.

  
So, she hopped off her bunk, forgetting the ladder altogether and landing on the barracks floor with a thud. She looked around to make sure she hadn't woken anyone. The Duros man who slept below her stirred a little, but didn't wake. Good. Just because she was a bundle of live wires and needed to get a head start on her day didn't mean she needed to deprive her fellow pilots of an extra hour of sleep.

  
Adega opened her closet, more a cupboard really, and began piling on all the various gear she'd learn to get used to since joining the rebellion. She'd been with them for nearly six months now. Life was strange and different here, as apposed to the smuggling ship she'd lived on since she was eight. There was a schedule, rules, regulations. Those were the things that took getting used to. Like, smoking cigarras in her X-wing was frowned upon apparently. And being the absolute bottom of the chain of command was new to her, too. All the fancy piloting gear was just another one of these strange things. She'd left behind all her own belongings, besides her sketchbook that on any other morning she'd have spent a good thirty minutes drawing in. It wasn't too bad, though, she thought as she strapped on her chest box. It was all worth it, for the cause of the Rebellion.   
Today, things were different. Even though she was just a lowly pilot, and a raw recruit at that, she knew that something was happening. There was an excitement in the air. It reminded her of when she first came to the Alliance. The electricity strung between each and every sentient being was almost tangible. It faded in time though, as she got used to being around so many people in such a high-risk situation. This, though? She didn't have an explanation. There were rumors. There always were rumors. Secret plans, new battle stations, a squadron sent out to bomb an Imperial facility. Adega didn't know what it meant, but the hushed tones and severe expression on the faces of the higher ups told her to be ready.

  
She took a look in the dull mirror screwed into the door of her closet. Adega was a tall woman and had to crouch to see her freckled face reflected back at her. It was almost time to shave her head again, her short auburn hair was almost long enough to run her fingers through. It wasn't regulation or anything, she just preferred it that way. A lifetime of wearing helmets and flightcaps changes your idea of physical beauty. As in, functionality is more important. The thought made her miss her old crew, and more specifically, the captain of her old ship. Ruhka, the feisty little Chadra-Fan smuggler used to cut her hair for her, clumsily holding the clippers in her paws. Ruhka was the closest thing to family Adega had left and before closing up her closet she made a mental note to send her a holo tonight after her patrols. Family was, after all, why she was here. Family was most important.

  
Adega laced her boots and crept out of her bunkroom careful not to wake up any of her fellow pilots. As the clunky old door hissed shut behind her, she was immediately met by the humidity of Yavin 4 and a waft of cigarra smoke right in her face.

  
"Took ya long enough, Degs." Maté Bharani, a fellow pilot from Adega's squadron, was leaned up against the stone wall of the corridor. In one hand she held her specially made helmet that fit her montrals and lekku, and in the other a cigarra.   
  
"Where the hell did you get that?" Adega snatched the cigarra from her Togruta friend's hand without asking drew on it deeply.   
  
"New kid." Maté laughed. " He's sleeping in the bunk above me now. I won the whole pack off of him in sabacc last night. Guess he doesn't yet realize that we don't have corner stores on Yavin 4."   
  
Adega snorted. "His loss."   
  
"Here." Maté fumbled with one of the pockets in her orange jumpsuit and pulled out a fresh cigarra. "Stop draggin' off mine, ya sleaze." Adega placed the tightly rolled stick of tobacco in her mouth and lit it with her multitool. Goddamn, it had been long since she'd had a cigarra. She silently thanked the gods for friends like Maté who would brake two rules in one and gamble some smokes off of meat even fresher than them.   
  
Maté was around Adega's age, she new that. And the both of them had been smugglers before finding their way to the Alliance. She didn't know much about Maté's past, but she knew that she was from Coruscant and did sublight runs of spice to orbital carriers for several years before being recruited to the cause. Not everyone in the Rebellion liked smugglers, but Adega was more than glad to have found someone who's life had in some way resembled hers. Smuggling, stealing, gambling, secretly smoking cigarras in the barracks hallways like teenage girls in a school bathroom. They'd known each other for less than six months but it was already Adega and Maté against the galaxy. And they liked it that way.   
  
"So." Adega said, stubbing out the butt of her cigarra against the stone wall and depositing the filter into an empty ammo cache on her belt. "Any news?"   
  
Maté clucked her tongue and shook her head. "'Course not. Whatever is happening, we won't know until it's completely necessary."   
  
"What about that squadron that they deployed? Any of them talked?"  
  
"Not to me." Maté shrugged.   
  
"Well," Adega said with a sigh. "Guess we should be on alert. Something wild is about to go down. I know that much."  
  
"I'm with you there, sister."

 

  
The two girls clad in orange jumpsuits made their way out into the vast hangar. Less an hangar really, and more an opening to the world. They could see the edge of the gas giant they orbited peeking over the horizon, the sky just beginning to turn orange around the edges. Droids rolled this way and that, the sounds of tools and native birds buzzed in Adega's damaged eardrums. Already as 0600 hours, the Yavin base was alive with activity. Usually this early there would be a few techs and droids milling about, but not like this. "Come on." Adega said. "I stashed some caf in my X-Wing. Let's go wake up."  
  
Adega's X-Wing was a scrappy thing, but she loved it like a child. She'd been assigned to the same one for nearly three months, so regardless of the fact that it belonged to the Rebellion, it felt like hers. She kept it shiny and greased. Every bolt and button polished. She'd always treated ships like holy things. When she'd lived on Ruhka's Ghtroc light freighter, she spent at least 30 minutes a day taking care of the clunky old thing. These days, there were techs who's whole job was to take care of Adega's ship. But they were more than happy to let her do their job's for them.

  
R3-X4, Adega's astromech that she'd nicknamed Little Gold on account od her gold detailing, chittered from the droidport at the back of the ship as she climbed up the cockpit ladder. Adega usually had early orbital scan patrols, so it was easiest for Little Gold to stay put overnight. She didn't seem to mind. She was a happy little droid, just glad for the occasional company. Adega patted Little Gold on the top of her clear plastex dome as she popped the cockpit hatch and the droid whirred a joyful sound.

  
"Here." She reached into the cockpit and pulled out a tall thermos of day old caf. "It's cold. Hope you don't mind."   
  
"Not at all." Maté said with a grin. "Cold caf and stale cigarras. A spacer's breakfast."   
  
Adega smiled and climbed back down the short ladder. "This is why we're friends."

  
She poured some caf into the thermos lid for Maté and drank hers right out of the bottle. Adega shut her eyes and savored the bitter taste of the old caf. It reminded her of her childhood. At least the part where she lived with Ruhka. Before that, well, they didn't drink much caf in her clan. Adega put that particular thought out of her mind and brought herself back to the present. After she drank enough caf to feel like an actual, alive human she'd get to work on tuning up her X-wing and making sure everything was running smoothly. Then she, Maté and two other pilots from their squadron would go out on patrol of the system, making sure that there wasn't anything or anyone suspicious hanging out just out of reach of their sensors on the ground. That's how every morning had gone since she came to Yavin. But this wasn't every morning. This was different. So, so different.

  
As Adega gulped down the rest of her caf, a harsh wind blew up against her and she turned her head around to see a ship landing in the middle of the landing pad. This wasn't an Alliance ship, that was for damn sure. In fact, this one was pretty obviously Imperial. Adega looked to Maté with eyebrows drawn together. Maté just shrugged, and opened a hatch on the belly of her fighter and and got to work like nothing was out of the ordinary. It was, though, Maté just never cared about anything until it was immediately affecting her. Adega, on the other hand, was too curious for her own good. It could easily have been a ship full of defectors. That wasn't unheard of. But Adega felt in her bones that whatever this was, it had something to do with the high tensions on base and that squadron that General Draven deployed yesterday.

  
"Maté , stop. Look." Adega said, nudging her friend on the shoulder.   
  
"What?" Maté didn't even look up, and instead took her hydrospanner out of her utility belt and reached her hands inside the open access hatch on her X-Wing.   
  
"Goddamit Maté , I said look."   
  
"Okay." The Togruta woman shut the little trap door on her ship's belly a little harder than she needed to. "At what."  
  
"This ship. It's Imperial."  
  
"What, you got some moral belief against grand theft now?"  
  
"No, just watch. Something's happening, I know it is."   
  
Maté turned around and stood next to her friend with squinted eyes. Nothing was happening yet. Just a ship. Imperial, yes, but unremarkable. The ramp came down slowly and several figures piled out. They weren't stormtroopers or anything. Just an odd assortment of humans and a droid. A few familiar, a few not. Captain Andor was there. Officers ran out of the base and met with this new batch of grubby humans and quickly ushered them inside. Quicker then usual.

  
"Hm. You're right." Maté said.   
  
"What do you think that was about?" Adega asked.   
  
"I don't even have an idea. Around here, it could be anything. I've given up on guessing."   
  
"My bets are on Draven's little escapade yesterday. Whatever this is, it has something to do with that."  
  
"You're probably right." Maté shrugged, and turned back to her tinkering. "More reason to make sure we're tuned up. Hand me that wrench, will ya?"   
  
Adega absentmindedly did as her friend asked, and got to work on her routine ship maintenance. Her mind was parsecs away, though. She'd known since she joined the Rebel Alliance that eventually, this fight would escalate. Since the beginning Adega knew that it wouldn't always be recon missions and smuggling goods and intel. Eventually, blood would be shed. Real blood. She'd been in a few little dogfights and had some close getaways, but all-out war was coming. Anyone that denied it was an idiot. Republic's weren't restored by having a sit down with the fascist regime and working out their differences. No, war was coming. Adega feared this might be it.

  
She climbed back up her ladder and switched on the cockpit console. Lately, some of her secondary functions had been buggy. Lights blinking erratically, just little things like that. It was an easy fix, but it did mean taking the plating off and redoing some of the wiring. It was a task more boring than hard but Adega figured today was as good a day as any. She had just turn on her multitool when Little Gold began chittering to her.

  
"Huh? I didn't catch that." Adega said, turning her head around to look at the astromech.   
  
"She said 'look down.'" A male voice said from the ground. Adega peered over the side to see General Dreis, a tall man dressed in the same orange flightsuit as Maté and herself, already with his helmet on and standing tall in the way that only Generals can do.   
  
"Hey." Adega said, taking two steps down her ladder before hopping the rest of the way down. "What's up?" She hadn't quite yet gotten used to speaking in a military fashion.  
  
"Lieutennats Bharani, Ijaakara." Dreis said with a curt nod. "You'll want to follow me. Now. You need to hear this." He spoke in a low tone, quieter than usual, and with a slight anxious tone. A few paces behind him were five or so other pilot's from their squadron, all their attention on the commander. The two women gave each other a glance. "You'll understand in a moment."

  
"Will we?" Maté asked, an eyebrow raised.

  
"Yes." Dreis sighed, dropping his professional mannerisms for a moment. He looked tired, Adega noticed. And anxious. Not unlike everyone else of base. "Now, come on. We're headed to the war room."

Yep, Adega had called it the moment she woke up. The war room. Something big was, indeed, about to go down. 


	2. Chapter 2

Adega had only been in the war room a few times since joining the Rebel Alliance. The first time was her first day on Yavin Base. It was a formality more than anything else. That's when she met first Admiral Raddus, General Syndulla and General Dreis, who she was to be a direct subordinate of in Red Squadron. She was surprised that so quickly she was assigned to a real squadron. She knew she had done well on her simulation test but, Red Squadron, really? It was overwhelming, to say the least.

  
Adega knew about the Rebellion long before she ever joined. Ruhka knew rebels, was friends with them, slowly started taking on smuggling jobs for them, and then became one. Ruhka had always had a soft spot for the downtrodden. That's how Adega had ended up in her care in the first place. It was only natural that the little Chadra Fan smuggler wound up becoming the Rebel Alliance's best cargo pilot. Adega had helped her on cargo runs, delivering arms and rations to various Rebel bases. It was dangerous work, and Adega knew that they were on the edge of something much, much bigger than them.

  
When the Rebellion became something that the galaxy could no longer ignore, an actual threat to the Empire, Adega knew they were already a part of it. Her and Ruhka, their other crew members, they were Rebels. Eventually Adega found herself volunteering to be combat pilot. She knew Ruhka would be okay without her. And she also knew that this new army needed young, capable pilots. She said a tearful goodbye to her crew, her family, and left for Yavin base. She could do more damage as an X-Wing pilot than a smuggler. And damage to the Empire was always number one on her to-do list.

  
Entering the war room now was no less anxious-making this time than the first time. Dark. Stone walls and glowing datascreens. A nearly tangible seriousness in the air. The vibe of a room where actual work gets done. It was different now, though. For starters, it was packed to the gills. People in lavish getups crowded around a deactivated holo table. A few commanders and generals, as well as Chancellor Mon Mothma, right there, in the flesh. A few of the new people from that mystery Imperial shuttle.Wall to wall soldier and pilots. And a deadly fear in the air that Adega had never felt before.

  
The morning had started out so completely normal, despite the general air of tension that everyone was aware of but too afraid to acknowledge. But Adega had been right. General Draven's bombing, the Imperial shuttle. They were pieces of a bigger picture. And in one swift moment, the early morning on Yavin Base had gone from meerly tense to life-or-death-situation. The mystery people from the shuttle had dropped a bomb. A metaphorical one, sure, but Adega thought that a real thermal detonator might've been better. They were talking about a tool of mass-genocide. A real, actualized one. They called it a Death Star, and if these strangers were to be believed, it was a planet killer. 

"We must scatter the fleet!" Senator Pamlo of Taris said in her harshest voice. Adega had seen her before, once or twice. They didn't really run in the same circles but the base was only so big. It was weird, seeing senators every day. Adega had met a mayor once, but that was only because she'd been arrested in his town and it was small enough a place that he'd nothing better to do than deal with crime. He was nothing like Pamlo, though. She was a real politician, one that had been in holos and broadcasts. Even people like Adega knew who she was. Adega had always thought the Senator looked serious, but kind. Right now she just looked scared. "We have no recourse but to surrender!"   
  
"Are we really talking about disbanding something we've worked so hard to create?" Senator Organa from Alderaan said, always the voice of reason. Adega nodded, already caught up in the discourse even from the back of the mass of bodies, her and Maté pushed together and standing on tip toes to see over the much taller men surrounding them.

"We can't just give in!" Admiral Raddus railed in his deep voice, and Adega found herself nodding along again, as did the other pilots and soldiers crammed in the back of the room. She was ready to fight, as were they. If the Empire had a tool like this, they needed to act. There was no question. Even if they had no chance of survival. They needed to do what they could. Adega felt that call to action burning inside of her. Now was the time, and it was a long time coming. It was right now.

  
More expensively dressed Senators shook their fists in anger and called each other liars. It was a conversation that was going nowhere fast, and Adega could see it. Suddenly, she had a new pang of fear. They might vote to do nothing. They might keep yelling at each other until the Empire came here in their killing machine and evaporated them. She had been right. The tension, the anxiety. Adega had known that they were headed towards something, and now here it was. This was the beginning of their open war. It was inevitable. And all the politicians could do was argue.

  
"A Death Star, this is nonsense." One man in a cloak more expensive than Adega's first speeder scoffed, like anyone who believed in the possibility was a fool.   
  
"What reason would my father have to lie? What benefit would it bring him?" One of the strangers from the Imperial ship said, a woman hardly older than Adega and Maté.  
  
"To lure our forces into a final battle, to destroy us once and for all." General Draven snapped back. It wasn't an outlandish thought, Adega could admit. But she didn't care. This woman said she knew were the plans to this new battle station were, and that if the Alliance could get them, they had a chance to destroy it. This was worth it, wasn't it?   
  
"Risk everything, based on what?" Another well-dressed man chimed in. "The testimony of a criminal? The dying words of her father, an Imperial scientist?"   
  
"Well, don't forget the Imperial pilot." The man with the fancy cloak added.   
  
"My father gave his life so that we may have a chance to defeat this!" The woman said, more steel in her voice this time.  
  
"So you've told us." General Dodonna said, doubt and exhaustion all over his old face.   
  
"If the Empire has this kind of power, what chance do we have?" This from Senator Pamlo again, her tone even more serious that usual, resonating with fear and hopelessness. Adega didn't have an answer to that. She never had. She was far from the only person in the room to have lost everything to the Empire. She lowered her eyes. She would never consider these senator's points of view. Backing down was unacceptable, unimaginable to Adega. It went against her beliefs, her culture, her core being. But it was a question worth thinking about. The Empire swallowed the galaxy and kept consuming like a black hole. In all the myths and legends Adega heard as a small child, none spoke of a power as big, as sinister. Not even the Ancient Sith, for they at least had a evenly matched opponent in the Jedi. The Empire was a new creature, specifically bred to be big and invulnerable. And what chance did they have against that? She'd asked herself that question every day since she'd lost her clan.

"What chance do we have?" The woman echoed Pamlo's word. "The question is, what choice? Run, hide, plead for mercy, scatter your forces? You give way to an enemy this evil, with this much power, and you condemn the galaxy to an eternity of submission." Adega looked back up and found herself nodding, along with the rest of the dregs of the rebellion, the soldiers and pilots, and even a few of the higher-ups. "The time to fight is now. Every moment you waste is another step closer to the ashes of Jedha!" A silence hung in the air for a moment.   
  
"What is she proposing!" A man standing a few steps away from Adega shouted. The noise picked back up. The room grumbled and argued.   
  
"Send you're best troops to Scarif." She began again, cutting through the chatter and completely ignoring it. "Send the Rebel fleet if you have to. We need to capture the death star plans if there's any chance of destroying it."  
  
Adega's fists were clenched, grubby nails digging into her palms. She was ready. And after a quick glance around her, she knew she wasn't the only one. The pilots and soldiers standing in tight bunches at the back of the room were all stiff and their eyes were locked on the woman speaking over the holo table. This was why they were here, wasn't it?

  
"Your asking us to invade an Imperial installation based on nothing but hope." Senator Pamlo retorted.  
  
The woman smiled for a quick moment. "Rebellions are built on hope." She said, almost like a mantra, or something she'd been told before but didn't believe until this moment.  
  
"There is no hope." One senator sneered.   
  
"I say we fight!" Raddus said, cutting him off and slamming his webbed hand down on the table.   
  
"Well, I say the Rebellion is finished!" Fancy cloak added. The room erupted into chaos. Every voice fought to be heard. The pilots and soldiers railed against the Senators, agreeing with Raddus. Adega was equally angry and excited in that moment. They needed to go, they needed to fight. She knew it as well as she knew her own name. They had to send the fleet. They had to.   
  
"I'm sorry, Jyn." Chancellor Mon Mothma said, specifically to the woman from the Imperial shuttle, but also to the room as a whole. Adega's poor ears didn't hear the soft words but she saw the Cancellors face and knew. "Without the full support of the Council...The odds are too great." The noise of the room died. The woman, Jyn, turned around and pushed her way through the crowd. Leaving without another word. The pilot she came with followed. Everyone in the room exchanged glances and that was it. They all turned to leave. Nothing was to be done.

  
Adega felt her heart skip a beat. It wasn't supposed to go like this. They weren't supposed to back down. They weren't supposed to let disagreements stop them from possibility saving the galaxy. No. This was wrong. Adega's head spun. She quickly turned around and stormed out of the war room, not caring who she knocked into on her way out.   
She didn't stop walking until she was outside, under the pale morning light and the orange Yavin gas giant, just barely peeking over the horizon. She couldn't process a single thought. They were just giving up. They weren't going to even try. The Empire was going to win and win and win. Everything was wrong.

  
"Adega, hey, wait up." Maté said from behind as she caught up with her friend and put a hand on her shoulder.   
  
"What? What?" Adega snapped as she turned around. Usually Maté wouldn't tolerate Adega's temper, but right now it didn't matter.   
  
"Here." She said, jamming a hand into her pocket and retrieving a cigarra. Adega took it with a sigh.   
  
"What are we supposed to do? Just, sit here at base? Wait for a super laser to fry us to a crisp? Kneel to genocide and fascism? Go out on our goddamn patrols like nothing has changed?" Adega's voice raised before she even realized it. She didn't care.   
  
"I don't know, Degs. I'm just as angry as you are." Maté said. holding out her multitool to light Adega's cigarra for her, and then one for herself.   
  
"I can't agree with this." Adega threw her hands up in the air.   
  
"I know that! I'm with you!"  
  
Adega took a deep, painful drag of her cigarra and blew smoke out her nose. She tried to calm herself. "I'm sorry for snapping at you."  
  
"S'fine."   
  
"I don't know what I'm supposed to do now."  
  
"I guess we need to go out on patrol."  
  
"That seems so ridiculous right now."  
  
"It is." Maté said with a shrug, trying to summon back her trademark cavalier attitude. "But I know you. And I know when you're pissed off you need to keep busy or someone is going to get injured. Usually you."  
  
"You've got a point there, I guess." Adega said as she took another deep drag, her lungs already protesting. She was almost shaking with rage. This was the wrong decision. The council was wrong. Those senators were wrong. And if something wasn't done this would bite them in the ass. But what could she do? For now, follow her friend's advice and keep busy.   
  
"Okay then." Maté nodded. "Let's get out there."


	3. Chapter 3

  
Adega was sat on the stone ground of the Yavin Base cooridors with her legs crossed, her sketchbook in her lap, drawing with shaky hands. Maté was sat opposite from her, posing. They were tucked way back into the base, in a little-traveled cooridor that lead to the storage rooms. Every once in awhile someone stepped between them or a droid rolled through, but for the most part they were alone. And that's what they needed right now. 

 

Their patrols had been finished in silence. Usually the two girls chatted over the coms, much more than regulations technically allowed, but no one ever noticed or cared. They scoffed at the redundancy of their duties and laughed at the kinds of things that were only funny when you were just that bored. But today the airwaves were deadly silent. They landed back at base and immediately retreated to the dark hallways for some peace and quiet. There wasn't much left to talk about. And drawing always helped Adega ease her mind. 

  
"Lift your chin a little." Adega said, looking up from her sketchbook.

  
"Ugh." Maté sighed. "Are you almost done? My neck is tired."

  
"Yeah, yeah. Almost done. I'm just trying to get the shading right on your neck and head tails."

  
"Can't you just, I don't know, fill that in with guess work?" 

  
"Sure I can." Adega said with a little bit of a smirk. "But you don't learn anything that way. I probably could've drawed you from memory by this point but that doesn't help me improve my drawing skills."

  
"Why didn't you ever go to art school?" Maté asked, sounding kinder and less defensive than usual. "I mean, you're already super good at drawing but, you seem really into it. All that sketching you do in your bunk and whatnot. Don't you think you could make a career of it?" 

  
"I don't know." Adega said without looking up. "I guess my life has just been too chaotic, you know? I'm busy with other things. Besides, I never went to school. I'd have to jump through all kinds of hoops to even be legible for a university."

  
"Really?" Maté said, her eyebrows crinkled. "Never went to school, huh? How'd that happen?" 

  
"My family, my real family, we didn't stay in one place. We were all over the galaxy. My mom and aunt and uncles taught me themselves. And when I crewed up with Ruhka and started smuggling I just didn't have the time, you know?" 

  
"Damn. Well, you didn't miss out on much."  Maté said as she took a fresh cigarra out of the now half empty pack and lit it. "I went to school back home on Coruscant. Absolute trash. I didn't learn a single thing."

  
Adega snorted. "So you can't read?"

  
"I can read, Dega." Maté rolled her eyes. "And do math. All the basic junk, you know? But that's about it. The public school system was chaotic. They spent more time punishing us than teaching us. I swear I spent half of my last year in detention." 

  
"That sounds about right." Adega smirked. 

  
"Yeah, yeah asshole. I'm sure you'd have been right there with me." Maté said with a half smile and an exhale of smoke. "It's really a bit of conspiracy if you think about it."

  
"How so?"

  
"Look at it this way. The Coruscant public school system is chaos that breeds troublemakers and failure. A lot of kids are going to go from there to prison. And the Imperial government profits off of that. Labor and whatnot. Or, kids parents press them into enlisting. So they can get a better education, or just to keep them out of trouble, whatever. That obviosuly helps the government too." 

  
"Goddamn, you're right." Adega said, looking up from her sketchbook with a look on her face that clearly said 'dissapointed but not surprised.' 

  
"Yep. I'm lucky I got outta there, to be honest. You think Coruscant and you think class, luxury, right? Couldn't be farther from the truth. It's all propaganda, man."

  
"I believe it." Adega said. "Oh, I'm done, by the way." She turned her sketchbook around to show Maté the finished drawing. Maté smiled. 

  
"Holy gods, Dega. This is what I'm talking about. You're so good! You really could make a career out of this! It looks just like me." 

  
Adega awkwardly smiled, unsure what to do with the praise. "Thanks." She said, and flipped to a fresh page. She loved to draw, she really did. Back on Ruhka's ship when she had more time on her hands, she'd draw comics all about what her day had been like. It was like journaling, but better. She'd filled up page after page with detailed accounts of smuggling runs, new worlds she visited, bar fights, late night conversations between her and her friends, anything and everything. She'd kept it up for a long time, but on the Rebel base she couldn't reliably set aside time to make her comics. These days, she sketched her X-Wing, her squadron mates, what she remembered of her dreams, the Yavin plantlife. Adega had just begun sketching the figure of Little Gold when voice came crackling through the sound system. 

  
"Attention all flight personel," A male voice boomed, filling the echoing halls around them. Adega and Matélooked at each other, startled. "Report to your commanders immediately; we've been redirected to Scarif. Pilots, you'll be briefed by you're squadron commanders on route. May the Force be with you."

  
The two girls were immmediately on their feet, in a mad dash for the hangar. Adega left her sketchbook and pens on the floor of the cooridoor and didn't think on it twice. They were going to Scarif. They were going to fight, weren't they? Why else, god forbid, would they be going to the exact place the messengers Captain Andor had brought back had said they needed to got to? Adega didn't even have time to be scared, to think about what this meant for her, the cannon fodder. They were going to fight. They were going to strike. 

  
The hangar was alive in a way Adega had never seen before. Everyone, everyone, was scrambling to their ships. Adega and Maté had arrived what felt like immediately after they heard the first accouncement. She couldn't even remember walking through the base. Her brain was already going a thousand miles an hour, already in hyperspace. 

  
At the far edge of the melee were the Red Squadron fighters, and even from the entrance Adega could see the orange-clad pilots in a group around General Dreis. Adega and Maté weaved their way through the crowded hangar, trying their best not to trip over any droids. 

  
"Lieutenant Ijaakara." General Dreis shouted towards her, pronouncing her last name wrong as usual, upon spotting Adega among the chaos. "You're fighter is already being readied for flight."

  
"Commander, what's going on?" Adega asked, eyebrows drawn together and jaw tight. The rest of her squadron was already there, many of them climbing the ladders into their X-Wings and getting ready for take off. The sound around her dissolved into one dull roar. 

  
"It's Raddus." The General said, and she had to watch his lips to understand his words. "He's gone to fight, he's on his way to Scarif. Captain Andor and his crew decided to go anyways. We're on our way to fight."

  
Adega's heart skipped a beat. She saluted, not knowing what else to do. "Okay." Adega said, trying her best not to sound like she was dying of anxiety, which she was. 

  
The General waved away her awkward salute. "Time is of the essence, Lieutenant."

  
"Right." Adega nodded. "Right, I'm on my way."

  
Her fighter was where she left it, with Litle Gold already in  the droid port and swivelling her head rapidly. Techs were buzzing around the bottoms of the fighters, and one of them disconnected the fueling line as Adega approached her ship. 

  
"You're all ready to go, pilot. As soon as you get the go ahead from flight control." The tech said, helping Adega get the ladder into place. 

  
"Thank you." She said, offering a nod and climbing into her cockpit. She always felt comfortable in her X-Wing, and she still did, but she couldn't shake the anxiety coarsing through her veins. 

  
The cockpit sealed and the roar of the hangar melted away. With her helmet in place, Adega turned on the comms and waited for her signal to leave. She began her pre-flight checks. Her X-Wing was functioning just fine, besides the secondary functions she'd meant to fix before the meeting in the war room that morning. Well, it was too late now. And it hardly mattered. Adega didn't excatly know what was about to happen. Who could? But her best guess was that she was about to be flung into a real life space battle. She'd probably die, honestly. Gods, who was she to be a combat pilot? She was eighteen years old, and her space combat experience was limited to fighting off or escaping a few ships at a time. And usually they were local mititias or pirates. Not the goddamn Empire. 

  
Yeah, such a situation didn't fare well for a teenage girl in a fighter older than she was. Whatever was about to happen would be incredibly dangerous. She could die. Maté could die. General Dreis could die. But it was too late to think about what all that really meant. They had all decided to run thr risk. Her death would be worth it, if it got them one step closer to making things right in the galaxy.

  
"Red Twelve," The flight commander's voice crackled through the comms and it took her a moment to remember that Red Twelve was her. "You are cleared for take off. Acknowledge."

  
Adega pressed her palm into the transmit button. "This is Red Twelve. Acknowledged." 

  
So this was it. They were on their way. She brought the X-Wing to life and began to gently lift it off the ground. She looked forward and waited for the fighter ahead of her in line to be a generous distance away, and she took off, suddenly streaking across the pale pink and orange sky of Yavin 4. The thought crossed her mind that this might be the last time she ever saw the moon she'd called home for the last six months. Adega shook the thought away, replaced by a phraze she hadn't thought of in a long time. The Mandalorian saying, Ib'tuur jatne tuur ash'ad kyr'amur. Today is a good day for someone else to die. She smirked. Adega rarely thought about her heritage or childhood anymore. But now, she needed all the encouragement she could get. She repeated the phraze to herself under her breath. Again and again and again. 

  
Soon, she was in orbit, the moon she'd been on minutes earlier hanging below her, The whole goddamn fleet was in the space above Yavin. One by one, they dissappeared. Turning into blurs as they shot into hyperspace. 

  
"Red Squadron, report in." General Dreis's voice came into her cockpit. One by one, all the members of Adega's squadron accounted for their presence. Maté's voice came just before hers. 

  
"Red Eleven, standing by." The familiar voice said. 

  
Adega took a deep breath. "Red Twelve, standing by."

  
"All wings, make the jump to hyperspace. May the force be with you."   
  
  
The flashing and twisting blue of hyperspace was silent to her once the briefing was through and she shut down her coms. Adega remembered the roaring sound of lightspeed from her childhood but it had been awhile since her hearing could pick up on noise that subtle. She didn't mind it at all though. It meant that during the ride to Scarif, she could shut her eyes and still her mind. If it weren't for the vibrations of the ship and the hammering of her heart, she could've been anywhere. Adega breathed deeply and tried not to have a full-blown panic attack. It had been awhile since she'd had one, but hey, iminent death was as likely as anything could be to bring one on. She clenched her fists, gloved fingers digging into her palms and told herself she was ready. Ready to die, ready to be victorious, ready for anything, ready for this. She had to be. In no time, she'd be dropping out of hyperspace and into the thick of it. A real battle, likely. Star Destroyers and fleets of TIEs and more chaos than she'd ever seen. Luckily, if Adega felt comfortable anywhere, it was in the cockpit of her X-Wing. She's always loved the feel of a flight stick in her hand, the black extending out before her, feeling unmoored to the ground, gravity unable to touch her. She knew she was a good pilot. She whispered outloud the mantra of her ancestors again. Ib'tuur jatne tuur ash'ad kyr'amur. She'd be okay. She'd do her job, she'd do what she knew was right. Until then, she'd just have to focus. Eyes shut. Fists tight. Still mind. Deep breaths.

 

Little Gold whistled behind her when they were close. It had been a long jump, but the proximity alert felt premature. Were they really in the Scarif system already? A new pang of anxiety flooded through her, but she pushed it away. It was time for her mind to go concrete, the way it always did when Adega was in the cockpit, heading into a dicey situatuion. It occured to her that dicey was quite an understatement. But here she was. It was time. 

  
"Dropping out of lightspeed in three...two..and one." 

  
Adega opened her eyes to the blue dissapereing, and space opening up all around her. And oh gods, it was more than she ever could've expected. Star Destroyers loomed around them like knifes cutting though space itself, ships both Imperial and Rebel nearly as numerous as stars, the sparkly blue shield around Scarif hung beneth them. The whole goddamn Rebel fleet was appearing before her eyes, everywhere she looked. Adega smiled. The anxiety was already gone. She was ready. She knew what she was fighting for and she was ready. The leaders of Blue, Red & Gold squadrons reported in and Adega fell into step without thinking about it behind General Dreis and the others. They were in formation, awaiting their next command, and her head was clearer than it had been all day. 

  
"Red and Gold squadrons, attack formations! Defend the fleet!" A voice barked through the coms. Raddus's voice. Adega opened her s-foils and leaned forward as much as her safety restraints allowed her. Red squadron dove downward, fast as a mynock out of hell, beginning their circle around one of the Rebel dreadnaughts. Adega didn't know which one was which and it hardly mattered to her. Her job right now was to pick off any TIEs or, really, anything that got too close to the Rebel command ships and keep them all alive until...well, until they either got what they came for or died. But she couldn't think about that now. 

  
The cannons on the Star Destroyers began to fire. Luckily, those huge hunks of metal took a long time to maneuver, and weren't quite angled to hit their command ships yet. She knew any moment the sky would be full of TIEs, but they had minutes before then, and any extra time they had was a blessing. The squadron swooped around the edge of the dreadnaught and came withing range of one of the Destroyers. They fanned out, giving each other enough space to not die of friendly fire, and rained hell down on the cannons. One exploded in a burst of flame, just as Adega flew past it. She didn't exactly see who hit it, but based on their formation her best guesses were Red Five or General Dreis. They pulled up and away and Adega felt the pulse of adrenaline she associated with fast flying, ready to make another pass and take out as many of the cannons as they could in the least ammount of time, before the Empire released it's fighters to take care of them. 

  
"The shield is closed." A voice buzzed. "Repeat, the shiled is closed. Fighters and troop reinforcements made it through." Adega smiled. They made it. At least some of them. They had people on the other side of the shield and, as far as she could tell, the plan was working so far. The Reds came around to their second pass and filled with renewed hope, Adega unleashed her guns on the first canon the second it was in range. It erupted in a cloud of sparks and she whooped out loud. At the very least, she'd taken out a canon. Now the Empire had one less canon to kill them with, and that counted for something. Just as they pulled up again, General Dreis's voice came through the coms. 

  
"Red Squadron, the is Red Leader, we are engaging the Star Destroyer head-on. Form up and follow me." 

  
The squadron twisted through space and changed course, all of a sudden met with TIEs, late to the party but definitely making an enterance. Adega swore under her breath but kept her head clear and increased her speed. They were just TIEs. Probably the most useless ships the Imperial Navy ever came up with. They didn't even have shields, so one well-placed hit would take them out easily. Still, though, in great numbers they were dangerous and most definitely unwelcome. Adega swerved to stay out of the path of them as she swooped over the Star Destroyer. That was the top priority right now, taking out the big guns.

  
Adega thought back to the time she took out a pirate ship in the Rishi system, one that had been fixing to get their hands on some particualrly rare cargo Ruhka was hauling. She wrecked their turret pretty good and, eventually, the ship it's self after taking out their shields and hitting them really good right in the view port. Obviously, this was different. The stakes were considerably higher. And so was the danger. But the feeling remaind the same. She knew how to handle herself, how to get the job done when she was flying. The rest of the time Adega might've been an awkward, cocky, and somewhat insubordinate child. But behind the flight stick? She was in her element. There was no more fear. Not even as she aimed and fired on the array just to the left of the Star Destroyer's bridge, flying through the cloud of fire and smoke it turned into as it exploded, TIEs on her trail. 

  
She dove down, rolling around and straightening back up underneath the Destroyer. It was operational, still, after all the hell they'd put it through but they were making a dent. Adega flew back into the light and pulled back up, ready to make another pass over the hull of the ship, but Little Gold was chittering wildly behind her. 

  
"What's that, Little Gold?" She asked of the droid, fixing her eyes on the read out display, knowing that the soud around her was too chaotic for her to understand Little Gold's beeps and whistles. 

  
"Many TIEs! - Incoming!" Read the display on the cockpit dashboard. Adega took a quick glance at both her targeting computer and and the space outside her cockpit. Adega's breath cought in her throat. Many TIEs was an understatement. This was...A swarm. That was the only word that came to mind. 

  
"Wings Six through Twelve, on those TIEs. Take out as many as you can and keep them away from the rest of the Squadron while we make our passes." General Dreis voice said, nearly a shout. Adega tore off, head first into the oncoming cloud of fighters. She swooped down towards the first one in her path, firing rapidly. It's right wing tore off and flew into space, glittering into a million pieces. The fighter it had once been attached to corckscrewed downward and out of sight. She smirked and pulled back up, moving on to another. Just before her thumbs hit the triggers, her sensors went off. Kriff. There was one on her trail, directly behind her. Adega pulled the flight stick back hard and went spinning upward, twisting uspidedown in a loop and away from the lasers of the TIE, hitting the space where she had just been. She righted herself and swooped back around. The TIE was still close, now following close behind one of her wingmates. She pulled back down and zoomed in behind it, hitting the triggers and firing on the fighter. It exploded into a ball of flame in an instant and she breathed a sigh of relief. Two down, a million to go. 

  
Adega plowed through the melee, picking off TIE after TIE, leading them away from a comrade in a tight situation and into a better place to get fried. It didn't even matter that they kept coming and coming. As long as the Rebel fleet was still in the sky, they had hope. Adega clipped the wing of one TIE and and the body of another in two rapid shots, the second fighter imploding into gas and debris just as Adega dove through the spot where it had just been. It was a little too close, and her shields were at seventy five percent, but she didn't care about that right now. She could worry about her shields later. 

  
Suddenly shockwaves hit her from all around and Little Gold screetched. She switched her transmitter on. "What was that?" She yelled into her microphone. 

  
"The shield gate." General Dreis Voice came throught. "They found away to take down the shield gate. We have a way to get what we came here for." 

  
Adega looked all around her. All she saw was the chaos of the space fight for a moment, the TIEs, The Rebel fleet, Star Destroyers, Scarif below. But then what she was seeing focused. The Star Destroyers were crashing into one another and taking the shiled gate down with them. Adega didn't know what she'd missed in her blind fury of taking out TIEs, but whatever it was, it looked like it was working. The gate was open. Or, more accurately, gone. They'd gotten people down there. And now they could get them back, and with the battle station plans.

  
The coms were chaos. Direction trying to fight through the cheers of the other pilots. Whatever was to happen next, all she needed to do was protect the fleet. Keep the fighters at bay. And they might win this thing. She chased after a pack of TIEs, peppering them with laser fire. Nothing else mattered now. Not the tears leaking down her face or the hopeful grin she couldn't keep at bay. They were going to win, they were going to win and--

  
Space turned green around her, glowing brilliantly from every direction. 

  
She had to shut her eyes for a split second, and when she opened them again the planet below her was lit up with golden light. The sound around her seemed to dissappear, it was just light light light. Adega didn't know what this was. She'd never seen anything like it before. Was that...had she been hit? No. No, not her. She looked around her for a second as she pulled closer up to the dreadnaught. And then she saw. Scarif was erupting in the biggest explosion she had ever seen. 

  
The hollering on the coms had changed. Now it was panic instead of rejoice. The words she was hearing...massive object, blast, battle station. Oh gods. She hoped against hope it wasn't true. Had they just lost, after all? Did Scarif just go up in flames, along with the plans to the super weapon? Was that weaopn here? 

  
"All ships, prepare for the jump to hyperspace." Raddus's voice said and her body moved before her brain did and began punching in the coordinates for home. They were leaving and she wouldn't find out at least until they were en route if they succeeded or not. She shook her head and pushed the thought out of her mind. She wasn't out of this yet, and if she wanted to leave Scarif alive she needed to focus. 

  
"Little Gold, you ready?" She asked. The astromech began to warble back, when suddenly the whole ship shook and Adega slammed violently against the console. The X-Wing toppled end over end in a way ships weren't supposed to and her vision went hazy. Without checking, she knew that she'd been hit and that her shields were gone. She'd never been hit this bad before, probably because hits like this were fatal. Adega wasn't even sure if life support was still intact. 

 

"Quick!" She yelled. "Little Gold, plot a course. One we can make it to damaged!" The droid's frantic hollering from behind was muffled and everything around her spun. She didn't even know if the ship was actually spinning or if that was just her head. "Now, Little Gold! Now!" Little Gold screetched an affirmative, and Adega willed her hand still gripped on the lightspeed accelerator to push forward. 

  
The warped blue of hyperspace consumed her and the din of the battle was gone. It was just her now, her droid, and the blue void of hyperspace. Alerts beeped and lights flashed, all probably telling her that her ship was fried and her shields were gone. Like she didn't know. Little Gold chittered from behind and Adega didn't catch a word of it. It was futile, sound was a dull mess now even more than it usually was. Adega didn't know if that was due to the blood that seemed to be pooling up in her ears, or if she'd damaged her hearing even more. Her vision had gone hazy, too. She thought for a moment that maybe she was concust, but was it just tears in her eyes? Whatever the answers to these questions, Adega didn't have the time to find them. She was dying. She was sure of it. And the last thing she would ever see was the blue stretching out before her, blurred, just out of reach. It made a kind of poetic sense. It was almost funny. She was born in space. She might as well die there, too. 

  
Adega took a deep breath and found that her chest wouldn't fill. How did she not notice that before? She took another breath. The air passed her lips and disappeared. Her chest felt caved in. Yep, that settled it. Dying. She let her head dip forward to rest against the console. It was wet with sticky blood, already drying in clots on the flight stick. She realized that she didn't actually know where she was bleeding from. It all happened so fast. Adega raised a hand to her face to see but it trembled and fell. I'm dying I'm dying I'm dying, was all that she could think. She wished it would go faster.

  
She thought for a moment that she should drop out of hyperspace and die in the middle of nowhere. Then, at least, her ship and droid would be far from the Empire and couldn't be scanned and picked through for some clue that could be used against the Rebellion. But Adega was already losing functionality. She could barely hold her head up, let alone press buttons and grip a flightstick. She would just have to take her chances. 

  
The coordinates they were hurdling towards were for Saleucami. A farming planet, moderately populated but not on anyones radar. A definite Imperial presence, but also a rebel cell. That's why it made it's way into Little Gold's list of emergency coordinates. Popping out of lightspeed dead into a system with Imperials eyes was better than leading the Empire back to Yavin with her faulty hyperdrive. She would probably be unnoticed, or maybe not worth bothering with. It didn't matter. That would be Little Gold's problem, as she would be gone by then. She wanted to say goodbye to the droid. She'd grown attached to it over the six months they'd been together. But her head wouldn't lift. She couldn't conjur up words. Oh well. She'd just have to trust that the Little Gold wouldn't hold it against her. 

  
Adega sputtered and choked, blood spraying on her leather gloves and what she could see of the console. Well, that aswered one of those questions. Bleeding from the nose. She vagely remembered slamming into the console and figured that's when it happened. That's not so bad, Adega thinks. She'd broken her nose before, that's how she got that bump on her bridge that made her look even less like her mother than she did before. Her mother. She thinks of her mother. 

  
Adega realized hadn't actually thought about Hotdma-Sol in years. She tried to forget, to be honest. She'd even stopped thinking of her as her mother, stopped calling her buir in her thoughts. No, the closest thing Adega had to family was Ruhka, her droids, and the Tatooinian punk band that they hired to work on their freighter in exchange for passage to their off-world gigs. That was family. But Hotdma-Sol was the one who shaped Adega's idea of family, made it a concept that goes past blood relation, deeper, better, more beautiful. Mandalorians are like that, for all their violence and tendancy to set fire to everything they come in contact with, they are really all about respect and love. Hotdma-Sol wouldn't even be upset that her daughter had found a new family. Aliit ori'shya tal'din. Family is more than blood.

  
Adega's clan died. All of them. Or, most of them, at least. When she was eight years old. The Imperials on Gorse shot her mother, right before her eyes. Along with aunts and uncles and others in the clan. They took everyone else into custody, likely to be worked to death in a labor camp somewhere. She escaped because she was quick and small and irrelevant. And after that, Ruhka raised her. And that was that. That was how Adega became dar'manda. A Mandalorion who's lost their culture. 

  
She tried her hardest not to think about it. She tried to separate her life into two separate things, two separate people. There was the Mandalorian child who lived her life travelling across the galaxy with her clan, and the spacer who grew up to be a combat pilot. She didn't want to still be that kid. But Mando'a rolled off her tongue in a way basic never did. She could still hear the battle hymns her mother and uncles used to sing while building their traditional shelters on each new world. She still was a Mandalorian. She was, much to her dissapointment, still the same person she'd always been. 

  
The Empire had taken her family from her, all those years ago on Gorse, way on the outskirts of Shaketown where they had set up their camp. It was all for something that her mother had done alone. It was just a job. They didn't need to eradicate the entire clan. But Adega had learned, that's what they do. They don't tolerate culture or resistance. That's all there was as far as reason went. She lost her family because that's what the Empire does, it kills families. And now they would kill her, too. 

  
Adega realized that she wasn't thinking about her concave ribcage anymore, or the blood in her throat. She could no longer hear Little Gold's manic warbling voice or the dozens of alerts sounding in the cockpit. She was slipping away and she was okay with that. Adega had never been scared to die, not really. It was all worth it. If hope had been returned to the galaxy today, then everything was worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen....I love space battles abut I hate writing them. ugh. thnx to the 2 ppl reading this, lmao !!


	4. Chapter 4

  
  
_Hotdma-Sol woke up at 0400 hours like she did every day, no alarm necessary. She'd been doing so since she was 14 standard years old and as much as she'd have liked to sleep in one goddamn morning of her life, old habits die hard. Even when her children were born, she'd had a hard time resting the proper ammount. Hotdma-Sol was not a restful creature. Today, much like every day, there was much work to be done and she would be the first one doing it. She rolled out of her bunk, lit a cigarra, and began decking herself in armor._

_Since she'd first forged her own green and yellow beskar armor as a teenager, it had felt like an extention of her physical being. As much a part of her as her skin. Her ba'buir had told her when she was a child that the armor would become a part of her identity, but she didn't understand how true that was until the first time she saw her helmeted face reflected back at her in the shiny chrome of her bunk walls. Every morning, she was reborn as she donned the sacred beskar'gam. And no one wore it better than she did, she thought to herself privately._

_They had landed late last night on Gorse. A slimy, seedy, muddy, armpit of a planet if there ever was one. It never saw the light of day and it never smelled good. But ther were wastes and bogs and abandoned junkyards. Exactly the kind of places where a nomadic Mandalorian clan not looking to be bothered could set up shop for a week or two. And there was Shaketown, too. And in Shaketown they had connections, loyal ones. There was Ruhka, a little Chadra Fan smuggler who had the word on all the good jobs. She would set them up with mercenary work, usually the kind that would involve transport of goods somewhere along the way. Clan Ijaakara would do the heavy lifting, shooting, and punching. Ruhka would do the smuggling. It was a mutually beneficial relationship. Business was about to be good._

_Hotdma-Sol left her bunk and made her way through the less than clean ship to the galley, where tea and cider was already brewing, and the scent hit her immediately. It was like a nice hug, after the chilling air of the ship. This 0400 hours business was not just a her-thing. All the kids of her generation were forced awake at 4 in the morning. All the 30-somethings of clan Ijaakara were awake this early. Fine by her. She poured herself a mug of the spiced Mandalorian beverage._

_"Jate vaar'tuur." A grumbly voice said from behind. It was her brother, Anker. Her adopted brother, an Anzat who was nearly Hotdma-Sol's exact age. As children they had sometimes pretended to be twins, but they hadn't fooled anyone. It was easy enough with their helmets on, but as soon as anyone saw Anker's face they'd know he wasn't a blood brother of Hotdma-Sol._

_"Good morning to you too." She said before knocking back her whole mug of tea and cider and pouring another. "You ready to build the shelters?"_

_"Yeah." He said with a shrug._

_"The children should help. Go wake them up."_

_Anker scoffed. "Wheres you son? That's his job, isn't it?"_

_"Televin is asleep, too. Lazy boy." Hotdma-Sol clucked her tongue. She loved her eldest son, and loved the man he was becoming. But he was a spitting image of his father, in looks and personality. He was sarcastic and disagreeable and wouldn't do anything unless explicitly told to. He was thirteen standard years old now, and wearing his own set of specially forged beskar'gam. He was good with a blaster and always aware of his surroundings, had a good mind for tactics. But he lacked innitiative, drive, nevermind the seed of leadership._

_Hotdma-Sol had given birth to him when she was seventeen years old. She had felt like such an adult then, but she knew now that she hadn't been. Just a kid with too many responsibilities. She regretted nothing, though. Not overthrowing the corrupt clan leader and taking his place, not having a child with an outsider she'd met in Mos Eisley spaceport, none of it. She was the clan leader and a mother. It was who she had always been meant to be. Getting started early was one of her personality traits, wasn't it?_

_"You're too hard on him. On all of them." Anker said, pouring his own second cup of tea and cider._

_"I am not. Hard work breeds good warriors."_

_Anker rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, Hotdma. Has anyone ever told you that all the proverb-speak this early in the moring is fragging exhausting?"_

_"Yes, you. Several times. At least once a week ever since you came to us."_

_"And yet." He said with much drama. "You can't lay off it."_

_"Hey! I'm the Alor'ad! If not me, then who?" Hotdma-Sol laughed, playfully punching her brother on the shoulder with a gloved hand._

_"Buir?" A sleepy voice said from behind them, and they turned their heads. In the dark cooridoor that lead to the bunks, the small figure of Hotdma-Sol's eldest daughter stood in her night clothes._

_"Ad'ika, what are you doing up already?" Hotdma-Sol asked, putting on a smile and the kind voice she used when talking to children._

_"I heard voices in the galley, got up to see who."_

_"Very sharp of you. We were just going to have Televin get you up. Is he awake?"_

_"Nayc, buir. He asleep." Hotdma-Sol nealt down to her daughter's level. Adega was eight. Strong for her age and always ready to learn. She looked like her brother and father, all auburn hair and freckles, but had a spark in her eyes that Hotdma-Sol knew she had passed onto her daughter. A purely Mandalorian ferocity that she couldn't wait to see blossom. Adega did have that trait of leadership, she could tell already. Someday this tiny person would be a force to be reckoned with. A perfect Mandalorian. Maybe even the next Alor'ad._

_"You want a drink? Some skraan'ikase?" She asked her daughter._

_"Elek, buir." Hotdma-Sol poured her daughter a small cup of the tea and cider, and found some bread in the rations box. She arranged the breakfast on the galley table and Adega sleepily sat down, eyes half open, and took a big gulp of the bitter and spicy drink._

_"Good?"_

_"Elek." Adega nodded._

_"Me and your uncle were just talking about today, our plans. We're setting up our shelters and we want all the kids to help. It's time you learned to build."_

_"Does that mean we're staying on Gorse for a little while?"_

_"Elek. We have some local jobs, and Ruhka promised us something big. We'll be here awhile."_

_"Can I help with  jobs?" Adega said, suddenly awake._

_"No, Adega, I don't think so." Anker interjected. Hotdma-Sol shot him a look._

_"Why? Ni ori'jate kot'la verd!" the child protested._

_"Well, because--" Anker tried to continute, but Adega cut him off._

_"I did okay at Akiva! When the job go bad, I went to the rendezvous spot, just like we talked about!"_

_"Yes, you did. You did exactly what we talked about." Hotdma-Sol said._

_"Then why can't I go with you more job?" Adega asked, her eyebrows scrunched together, her words in basic sounding wrong and incorrect. Adega didn't like speaking basic, but she knew that learning the language was essential to working mercenary jobs. And thats what she wanted to do more than anything._

_"You can." Hotdma-Sol said. "As long as they are simple and low-stakes. I think you should help out on jobs like that."_

_"Really?"_

_"Elek." Hotdma-Sol smiled. "Now, why don't you go wake up your brother and tell him we're going to be building the shelters now, okay? It's going to be a long day, we need to get started."_

_"Okay." Adega said witha big grin as she hopped off her stool and ran down the shadowy cooridor towards the bunk where the children slept._

_"Really, sister? She's eight years old." Anker said, once Adega's footsteps could no longer be heard._

_"Yes, really. Our clan is small. We need to train the children harder. Show them our world. Teach them what life will be like."_

_"Training is one thing, Hotdma-Sol. Putting your eight year old in mortal danger is another."_

_"She will be fine, Anker." Hotdma-Sol rolled her eyes and took a big swig of caf. "That one, she has the soul of a survior about her."_

  
  
***

  
 The first thing Adega saw when she came to was the starry black void. Reliable, familiar.   
  
Space had always felt like home to her, more than any other home. Ruhka's ship, the green wooden shelters her clan used to dwell in, those were homes. But the void of space was the ultimate home, her real home. It was a part of her, as much as her freckles and tattoos and bones and blood. And now here she was, drifing through the black.

The next thing she saw was the console of her X-wing. Oh, right. Yeah. She had been in a battle, right? Her mind was hazy, like she was drunk or something. Adega rapidly blinked her eyes. Eye, actually. One seemed to be stuck. It wouldn't open, and throbbed with pain. Now that she thought of it actually, she was in a lot of pain.

Adega lifted her head and tried to look around. The first thing she noticed was that the gravity in her tiny cockpit was gone. It wasn't much of a hinderance to her, though, a life spent in space gauranteed you to enounter broken gravity every once in awhile. Nothing new to her. A few loose screws floated around in front of her, and she willed her blurry vision to look past them. Space. X-Wing. Blinking lights. Her memory started to come back to her in drips and drabs. Her ship had been hit, yeah, that was right. And she had managed to make the jump to lightspeed before she passed out. No, died, right? Didn't she die? Apparently not, she thought to herself, because here she was. Mostly alive. In orbit around Saleucami.

She wiped her face off with a gloved hand, being careful not to touch her broken nose too much. She took a deep breath. Okay. So, she lived. Now she needed to think through her concusion and make a plan. A real plan. One that would save her and Little Gold and get them back home without drawing Imperial attention. Whatever had just gone down over Scarif, it was big. Even canon fodder like Adega could see it. There were probably alerts out over all Imperial channels to stop any ships that matched the descriptions for known Rebel craft. And here Adega was, half dead and floating in orbit in a damaged X-Wing with no shields. And gods only knew how long she'd been here.

"Little Gold." She said, turning around to see the droid. Her voice suprised her. Or, rather, her lack of voice. All she heard was a muffle in the vauge range of human voice. Goddamn. She hoped that wasn't permanent. The droid's head swivled rapidly. Adega figured she was saying something, but she couldn't hear a single chitter. Poor Little Gold. The droid would've piloted them into a spaceport if she was still able to. That gave Adega a good idea of how damaged the ship was. She hoped against hope that she'd still be able to manually fly the thing.

"Little Gold, stop, I can't hear you. I think I damaged my ears or something. I'm going to fire up the ship and try to take us in, look for somewhere lowkey where we can land. Okay?" The droid rotated her head. Adega figured that was as good of an answer as she was going to get.

Adega throttled the flightstick and the ship lurched forward. Okay, well, lurching was better than nothing. She guided the X-wing forward. It was slow going, but Saleucami got bigger and bigger before her, and soon enough she could see the shapes of forests and rivers.

Saleucami was little more than farms and small villages. Out of the way, inconsequential. There were Imperials, yes, but nothing too scary. No Moffs. No Generals. Just officers and troopoers, harrassing the locals and screwing up the agricultural industry. It was what they did on a lot of sparesly populated planets. Moved in, ruined everyone's generations-old family businesses, and killed anyone who dared to resist. There was a Rebel Cell here. Made up of farmers who had banded together against the occupation. And Adega knew her best chance of survival was to find them. First though, she needed to rest.

Adega landed her X-Wing in an open plain. It was a rough landing, one of the struts jammed up and the ship teetered to one side. It was good enough, though. Adega was alive and more or less in one piece. That was better than nothing. She popped the hatch on the X-Wing and breathed in the fresh air. It tasted like dirt and plant life. Adega had never in her life been more grateful for air.

Gravity always made her a little sick, or at least, real gravity did. She was accustomed to the fake and regulated gravity of ships. She'd spent more time aboard ships than planetside. But this time, she was happy to see the little chunks of debris floating around her drop. She was grateful for solid ground.   
    It was night on this part of Saleucami. The sky was a dark blue and scattered with stars. Moonlight shone down on the plains and illuminated the strange bulbous trees scattered in the distance. It was cold, but Adega welcomed the chilling air. It soothed her aching injuries, of which there were many. She was still disoriented and concust. She hadn't yet taken inventory of how broken she was but she knew at least that her nose was smashed, her ribs were beat to hell and she could barely hear anything. Those were not insignificant, to say the least.

Adega gently climbed her way out of the ship, resisting the urge to scream with pain. Her ribs were definitely broken, she could

* * *

tell now. When she reached the ground, she lay flat. That was as far as she could go. She knew that she needed to get up, find a way to get Little Gold out of the X-Wing, alter her clothes so that she didn't look like a rebel pilot, clean her wounds, use Little Gold's scanners to find the nearest settlement. But she just couldn't. Adega looked up at the starry sky above her. It was pretty, she thought. If she couldn't get up right now, which she couldn't, then this was fine. She gazed at the sky and breathed deep. She lived through the Battle of Scarif. Now she needed another plan.

  
      
   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy mothers day!!
> 
> btw, this book is finished!! 17 chapters in total. I'm still editing. It's kind of long but very personal to me and I'd been planning it years before I actually wrote it. Right now I'm dreaming up the sequel. 
> 
> thanks for reading!!
> 
> p.s. Adega's mother looks like the 50's peruvian singer Yma Sumac, but all space warrior'd out covered in shawls and armor chains of trinkets and trophies https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOTUxMjUzZWItZjBmNi00Zjg4LWIyNGUtODA2OTNhYjg2OWI5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTUyMTMyMDg@._V1_.jpg


	5. Chapter 5

Adega's nose was broken. Her inner ear bones were damaged. She had cracked at least two ribs. One of her eyes was swollen shut. And on top of all of that, she was most definitely concussed. It was the early hours of the morning on Saleucami and she was off to a great start. She'd stopped bleeding, at least. There was always an upside.  
Despite the cold air, Adega was running hot. She had work to do and she needed to start now, despite being so injured that movement made her sick to her stomach. Enough time had already been wasted. Sometime in the night, she'd passed out, against her better judgement. You weren't supposed to sleep with a concussion, and now the sun was beginning to rise and soon she'd be able to be seen from the air. She needed to do what she could to divorce herself from the rebellion in the eyes of an onlooker. First she dug a hole and buried her helmet and chestbox and all other tech and items with a rebel insignia. She hoped it was deep enough and unnoticeable. She realized that she'd stuffed her & Maté's pack of cigarras into her pocket, without remembering. Adega tried to crack a smile. It was a small one, but a silver lining indeed.

  
Next, she washed all the blood she could off of herself with antiseptic from the emergency kit stashed under her seat. The front of her flight suit was pretty hopeless, though. she unzipped it and tied the arms around her waist, rolling it up so that the stained front wasn't too noticeable. It was still a bright orange suit, though. Pretty damn eye catching. She hacked off the legs with her multitool, exposing her skin and hairy legs to the freezing morning.

  
Now, she looked less like a Rebel pilot and more like a trashy spacer that had lost a fight. Not a hard role for Adega to play, considering that's exactly what she was. White undershirt, Orange shorts made from a dirty old jumpsuit, heavy boots, utility belt. She almost laughed at the outfit. If she wasn't so scared out of her mind and shivering from the could, she'd feel like her pre-Rebellion self. Tattoos on display and a blaster on her hip.

  
Sometime during the night Little Gold had tumbled her way out of the X-Wing. Whatever crashes and bangs she'd made on her way down were lost to Adega. Her hearing hadn't come back yet. That worried her. She could still hear some, but with no clarity. She couldn't understand Little Gold's beeps and whistles. Adega sat on the ground, facing the little droid, eyebrows drawn together in worry. What if her ears never healed? She's grown up with an aunt, her mother's sister, who was profoundly Deaf. The clan communicated with her in sign language, some of which Adega still remembered. She guessed she could learn that. But how would it affect her role in the Rebel Alliance? What if she couldn't hear voices over the coms anymore?

  
"Gods, Little Gold, what are we going to do?" Adega said, burying her face in her hands. She didn't bother looking up and waiting for an answer. She wouldn't understand. She figured she'd get up, pick a direction at random, and wander until she found a settlement. Or until she died of exposure, whichever came first. That was really her best bet.  
Something metallic poked her arm. She looked up to see Little Gold, arm extended, prodding her and swiveling her plastex head. She could faintly hear warbles and chirps, but nothing that she could decipher.

  
"What? Little Gold, I can't hear nothing. What?" She asked. The droid jabbed in one direction with her metallic arm, like a pointing hand. "That way? What's that way?" The little astromech just kept jabbing and swiveling her head. "Did you do a scan? Is there something helpful over there?" Still nothing that Adega could understand. Little Gold continued her frantic message. Adega figured that maybe she should just trust Little Gold and begin walking that way. But what if the droid was trying to warn about an approaching threat? Adega sighed. What a goddamn impossible situation.

  
"Okay, okay. Stop. We're going to try something a little different." Adega said, her hands out stretched in an attempt to calm the little droid. "Is there something coming? Turn your head for yes, and wave your arm for no." The droid waved her arm up and down. "Okay." Adega smiled. "Good. Now, the direction in which you were pointing. Is it a settlement?" Little gold rotated her head several times in excitement. "That's great! And you think we should go that way? You think we'll find help? Shops? Some way to contact the other Rebels on Saleucami?" This time, Little gold not only rotated her head, but also rocked back and forth. Adega laughed. "Alright, alright. Let's get going. I'm freezing my ass off."

 

  
The Saleucami plains of dirt and grasses stretched on for what felt like forever. Every once in awhile they passed through a wooded area or saw a farm in the distance, but for the most part is was desolate. Grasses, birds, patches of dirt that billowed up and irritated Adega's one open eye. It's wasn't an ugly planet, though. It was actually rather tranquil. It struck Adega that it had been awhile since she'd been on a planet that wasn't Yavin 4. She dearly missed travel, going to new places and seeing new things. A silver lining to this situation, for sure. She'd now traveled the Saleucami wilderness on foot, and she couldn't have said that yesterday.

  
It was nearly noon when the settlement Little Gold had picked up on her scanners came into view on the horizon. Twenty or so short buildings, based on what Adega could see from where she was. Satellite dishes and antennas decorated the skyline, which meant that this settlement was connected to the holonet, probably. If worst came to worst, she could probably contact Rebel HQ. She didn't know if she should risk it, though. If they had holonet, they had to have radio. Her first priority was to get her hands on a com of some kind and try to find the local resistance.

  
When they got to the settlement, Adega noticed that it was a little bit bigger than she thought from afar. After the twenty or so buildings there were some houses, and even a small spaceport. A spaceport was always a good sign, as it meant that someone like her would be unremarkable. She wandered into the little village and tried to look like she wasnt hurt too badly. She was, but clutching her ribs and staggering would draw attention and she didn't need that. Adega stood as tall as she could and walked slowly down what seemed to me the main street of the village. The spaceport was at the far end, and by the time she got there she wanted to be sick. Instead, she leaned against the outer wall and caught her breath. The worst part was over. Now, she needed to find a way to get out of this situation. Attached to the spaceport was a little garage. Above the office door hung a weathered sign that read Argu's Repair and Service Stop. It didn't look like much. Maybe even a little seedy. That was perfect. Exactly what Adega needed. She staggered in, Little Gold on her heels and leaned against the front desk.

  
"Hello?" She called out. She could hear her voice a little better now. The shape of the world was clearer. That was a good sign.

  
There was no one behind the counter and no service bell to ring. Nothing happened. She waited for a moment and then called out again. "Hey, anyone here?" A human man's angry face popped out from behind a half closed door.

  
"I heard you the first time." He said. Adega could just barely hear his voice. Men's voices, or any deep voices really, were always the hardest for her. He was probably forty standard years old and about as mean and haggard as one could get. She already didn't like him, just based off of the scowl on his face. But she didn't need to like him. She just needed to do business with him.

  
"Sorry." She said. "I can't hear too good."

  
"Yeah. What do you want?" He asked.

  
"So, I've got this ship. It's a real piece of crap. It's parked about eight miles out of town, in that direction." She stuck her arm out, pointed in the direction of the plains.  
"And you want me to drag it here and fix it?"

  
"Nah." She shook her head. "I need to get myself as far away from it as possible. You feel?"

  
The man drew his eyebrows together. "And what makes you think I want your crime-ship?"

  
Adega shrugged. "You could dismantle it for parts. Most of the guts are new, really. It's an old ship but I kept it nice. It's only a piece of slag because it took a pretty good hit recently. I barely got here in one piece."

  
The man scratched the back of his head. "What kind of ship we talkin 'bout here?"

  
"An X-Wing snub fighter." Adega said in a voice she hoped was quiet. The man's face shifted. He understood what was happening now, who she was.  
"And what do you want in return?"

  
"Whatever you think is equal." She said. "Preferably a speeder of some kind. Or a portable comm system with far range, if you've got something like that."

  
"And why should I believe this ship exists? How do I know you aren't trying to con me out of a speeder or comm system?"

  
"Because." Adega sighed. "If I was running a con, I'd ask for credits. Who runs a con for old junky tech when they're conning the only logical place they could sell it to?"  
The mand thought about that for a minute. "Okay. I see that."

  
"And really." Adega said. "If you don't feel like paying me, don't. Discretion is payment enough. What's most important here is that you get that ship, rip it up, and tell no one."

  
The man snorted. "I'll pay you." He said. "Around back, there's an old speeder bike. Rusted finish, only goes about 30 miles an hour. Take that, and get out of my hair."  
Adega smiled. "So we have a deal?"

  
"Yeah, yeah." He waved a dismissive hand at her. "Just get out of my shop."

  
Adega was surprised at how easy that exchange went. She thought she'd have to do more haggling, but hey, she wasn't complaining. Easier was always better, and it wasn't like she was anywhere near done with difficulties for the day. Of course this could still turn out to be a trap. Or something. But it wasn't like she had other options at the moment.  
Just as promised, she found the old speeder bike out back. It was probably about as old as she was and 'rusted' was an understatement, but it was a vehicle and it was hers. It looked like it had been used in the past for deliveries of some kind, because the back of it was modified into a small cart, perfectly droid sized.

  
"Look, Little Gold. It's even got a seat for you." She patted the droid's head. She knew that with Little Gold in tow she wouldn't even get up to thirty miles an hour, but it was worth it. Scuttling her beloved X-Wing was already hard enough. She wasn't leaving Little Gold this late in the game.

  
Now what Adega needed to do was find out where the hell she was actually going. There was, theoretically, a Rebel Cell somewhere on Saleucami. But where were they? How would she find them? She figured they'd have a communications blister at their outpost, but she had no way to reach it. Little Gold's sensors only did so much. Communication was beyond her.

  
Adega and Little Gold walked through the streets of the village. There had to be something, some way to find these Rebels. Maybe there was some place she could break into and use their comms. She'd broken into a few different buildings in her day. Back on Gorse, she tended to run with a rough crowd. They had once broke into an a pharmacy to steal medications for her friend Neenoo, who had blood burn. She wasn't above breaking and entering if it was for survival. But she hoped it wouldn't come to that. She was trying not to draw attention to herself, after all.

  
They turned a corner down a side street, and at the end there were several children sat around something. She squinted her eye and almost exclaimed out loud when she realized that the kids were playing with an old radio scanner, the kind with a comm installed. Ruhka had one on the ship when Adega was a kid. She knew how to work it, probably better than those children did.

  
"Hey!" Adega called out, waving a hand to get their attention. The kids looked up. There were four of them. Two Twi'lek kids, probably eight and nine, a human boy about the same age, and a Devaronian girl who looked to be in her early teens. "What you guys got there?" Adega asked when she was finally close enough to them for conversation.

  
"What happened to you face?" One of the Twi'leks asked her.

  
Adega shrugged. "You should see the other guy." She said. The kid chuckled a little.

  
"What do you want?" The Devaronian girl asked, unimpressed with the presence of an adult.

  
"That radio. Where'd you get it?"

  
"Found it in my dad's garage." The human said.

  
"Does it work?"

  
"Sorta." The human shrugged, turning one of the knobs and producing static that Adega could just barely hear.

  
"What do you want for it?" Adega asked. The kids all exchanged looks.

  
"One hundered creds." The Devaronian said with a sneer.

  
Adega snorted. "Yeah right. Look," Adega said, digging into the pockets of her grungy shorts. "I'll give you half a pack of cigarras, eleven creds and a this utility belt. That work for you?"

  
"What about that blaster?" The girl asked, crossing her arms. Adega scoffed.

  
"Look, man, I'm already offering cigarras to a minor. Don't push me."

  
The Devaronian smirked. "Okay. Works for me." She said, with her hand held out. Adega forked over the cigarras and creds and dropped her belt on the ground. Now that she didn't have a holster, she double checked the safety on her blaster and jammed it into her pocket. That would have to do.

  
"Thanks." Adega said, scooping the junky old radio off of the ground. "Stay out of trouble."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> she's such a terrible influence lmao


	6. Chapter 6

Adega sat down at the edge of the plains with the old radio. She wasn't exactly out of sight, but she figured that her new speeder and Little Gold provided enough cover that the towns people wouldn't see what she was doing. Besides, a strange lady with a black eye screwing around with an old radio wasn't inherently illegal. It just happened to be in this instance.

  
She was thrilled to be sitting. Really, genuinely thrilled. Her ribs throbbed. So did her face. It took all of her energy to not collapse into the grass and die right then and there. It sounded so nice, just laying back and letting the galaxy have it's way with her. But, she'd come this far. She'd go the rest of the way. That's just how she was. Hard to kill.   
Her hearing was getting better. Or at least, closer to how it had been before the battle. All she needed was to be able to use the coms, and possibly talk to someone on the other end. If they were out there. If she could find them. If they were still alive. She had begun wondering what, exactly, she would do if they were unfindable. The thought exhausted her. Everything exhausted her.

  
Adega started with some standard Rebel frequencies. On each one, she gave a quick mayday. She tried her best to remember the codes and protocols for these kinds of situations, but it mattered little. No one answered her. Once she cycled through, she tried them all again. She gave her callsign. Said that she was in a state of emergency. Did it again and again. All she heard was static, the channels were all dead. Or, at least, no one was answering her. What if the emergency codes had been changed? If so, she was screwed. She could swear they were good, though. It's not like she'd known them that long, after all. She saw still a raw recruit. Too fresh to be dealing with this schutta, she thought.

  
Adega sighed and pulled off her headphones. She was beginning to feel dehydrated and hungry and a little woosy. She didn't actually know how long it hand been since the battle, did she? What day was it? She figured Little Gold would have the answers to these questions, but she didn't actually want to know. She just wanted to find these elusive Saleucami Rebels.

  
So, the standard frequencies were a dead end. That was obvious enough. But this was a pretty backwater place. Maybe they were somewhat out of touch with HQ. Maybe they were using old frequencies, like the ones she and Ruhka were using back when they were shuttling junk to and from Rebel bases, before she'd become a combat pilot. Adega wagered that it was worth a shot. She tried again.

  
The first two were dead, same as before. Static filled her ears and doubt filled her heart. Adega scoweled. What would she do if she was really all alone here? Get a job as a farm hand? Steal a ship? The latter wasn't a horrible idea, but she was honestly too exhausted for that. She tried a third frequency. This time, someone anwered.

  
"Hello?!" A staticky and surprised male voice came through after Adega gave her message and emergency codes.

  
"Hello, hello? This is Red Twelve, is someone there?" Even she could hear the desperation in her voice.

  
"Yes, Red Twelve. This is Homeland Six. Are you alright? In need of assistance?"

  
"Yeah, yeah I am!" Adega sighed a huge sigh of relief. "Where can I find you?" The line went dead for a moment.

  
"This isn't a secure channel. Where are you?"

  
"Um..." Adega began. It occurred to her that she had no idea where she was. She almost said Saleucami, just to give an answer, but figured this wasn't a situation for joking around. "A village. It's small, uh, and the buildings are all short. There's a garage called Argu's outside the spaceport."

  
"That's Delroy Town. Head west from where you are about twenty miles and we'll send someone to meet you."

  
Adega was almost crying she was so happy. "Okay. Okay, I'll be there. Thank you. Thank you so much."

  
"Nah, thank you Red Twelve. It'll be nice to get some clarity on what the hell is happening out there." The voice said.

  
Adega snorted. "I'll do my best to provide it."

  
Adega loaded Little Gold up in the back of the speeder bike and wedged the radio in with her. You never knew when you needed a decent working radio, so she figured she'd keep it. Adega hopped on the seat and turned the old thing on, hitting the gas as hard as she could. The mechanic was right, it was a slow old speeder. As hard as she pushed it, she could barely get it to go past nineteen miles an hour. It didn't matter though. She only needed to travel twenty. Slow was fine as long as she was going forward.

  
She traveled past farm after farm, forest after forest. It wasn't an unpleasant ride, that was to be sure. Saleucami was an appealing sort of place. Adega could see why someone would move out her to raise a family, even if she didn't have the desire to. It seemed like a good place for a kid to grow up. That thought made her thing of Ruhka, though, and she frowned. She'd meant to send her a holo, hadn't she. Before the whole battle happened. It had been a long time since they'd spoken, and Adega resolved to send her one first thing when she got back to base. If she ever did. It was a depressing thought, but she wasn't out of this yet. If and when she survived this ordeal, she was sending Ruhka a long and sentimental holo. Tears were likely. She was homesick for the old ship and for Ruhka and her droids. For her old bed. Nothing makes you feel more like a lost little kids than a life threatening situation, that was for sure.

  
After what seemed like forever a figure appeared in the distance. Just a single figure. No ship, no speeder, no beast of burden. It was a girl, probably about Adega's age, leaned against a short tree and scanning the horizon with her eyes. When she noticed Adega, she gave a little wave and Adega returned it. The girl was a Mirialan, green skinned with diamond shaped tattoos on her face. A patterned scarf was wrapped around her head but the rest of her clothes were dirty and plain, much like the kinds of things Adega wore. This had to be the person. She had the look of a Rebel about her, and it wasn't just the work clothes.

  
Adega parked the bike a few paces away from the girl and hopped off. "Hey there." She said.

  
"Red Twelve?" The Mirialan asked in a hopeful sort of voice. Her accent was basic. Not too much different than Adega's. That probably meant she had grown up on Saleucami and not Mirial.

  
"That'd be me." Adega said. "But you could call me Adega. It's shorter."

  
"I'm Yaiya." The girl said with a little smile. "You look like you could use medical assistance, wanna head back to camp?"

  
"Oh, gods, yes please." Adega said with a sigh of relief.

  
"Alright. We're close. Mind if I hop on the back of your speeder? It's a twenty minute walk or a ten minute ride. Even on that sorry excuse for a speeder."

  
"Yeah, go ahead." Adega said as she hopped back on the speeder and scooted as far forward as she could. The girl, Yaiya, got on after her and held onto Adega's shoulders.   
"Just go through the forest there to the left. Soon we'll reach a farm, and once we do, go slightly right and you'll find the camp."

  
"Aight. Left, then slightly right. Got it." Adega said, turning the bike back on and picking up speed as fast as she could. She was almost to relative safety. This goddamn nightmare was almost over. Soon she'd get to eat and drink and sleep. Maybe even get back to the Rebel base soon. It all sounded too good to be true.

  
Just like Yaiya had said, the woods opened up to what looked like a farm, sort of. A poorly tended farm. A farm that had been given up on and now grew wild. Brambles and weeds overtook fences and junky old threshers. Adega veered right and saw some rock formations with an opening dead in the center. She knew that would be the camp, and she was right.

  
Adega powered down the speeder bike right passed the opening of the rocks. The was the Rebel camp, all right. It was smaller that she'd expected, though. There was an old Corellian light freighter, a few more speederbikes, a campfire, and a tent. That was it. That was the whole Rebel Cell. Adega wasn't disappointed, just surprised. She thought that the Saleucami Rebel Cell involved many families and many farms. Clearly, this had either been over exaggerated or these farmers had recently taken some big hits. An elderly human woman poked her head out of the tent and came running towards them while several humanoids came pouring out of the ship. Clearly, a random transmission from a stranger with Rebel clearance codes was a pretty exciting occurrence in these parts.

  
"Oh my gods, you're hurt." The woman from the tent said in a motherly voice. "Quick, come with me. Come. We'll get you all fixed up." She said.

  
"Magda, give the girl a chance to breathe." One of the figures from the ship said, a tall Duros man dressed in greasy coveralls. "Red Twelve, I'm Homeland Six. We talked on the coms briefly."

  
"Yeah, hi." Adega held out her shaky hand and he shook it.

  
"Enough pleasantries." the woman, Magda, said. "Poor thing looks like she was beaten to a pulp. We need to get her some bacta." She put an arm around Adega's shoulder and ushered her away from the excited crowd.

  
"My droid." Adega began. "Someone get my droid out of the--"

  
"--Don't worry about the Droid." Yaiya cut her off. "We'll take care of it." Adega was nervous about being away from her droid, probably because she was bad at socializing and needed a crutch, but she figured her broken bones took president and decided to let them handle it.

  
Magda lead Adega into the tent. It was bigger than in looked from the outside, and in the back there was a decent med station set up. They helped Adega lay down on the cot and immediately began buzzing around her in a chaotic frenzy.

  
"Where are the bacta shots?" Magda asked of Yaiya, who was digging through a storage box.

  
"I don't know. Are you sure we have any more?"

  
"Yes, I'm sure! How could we go through that many bacta shots!"

  
"It's okay." Adega said, propping herself up on an unsteady elbow. "I don't need a bacta shot."

  
Magda rolled her eyes. "Like hell you don't." She said before joining Yaiya in her search for medical supplies.

  
"Aha!" Yaiya called out. "Found one. It was under the bandage rolls." She held up a small sterile-looking package. The sight made Adega wince. It was a small package as far as packages went, but when it came to needles it was on the large side.

  
"Thank the gods." Magda said, snatching the shot from Yaiya and tearing away the wrappings. Adega was right. It was a big needle.

  
"Really you guys, I'm okay." She said.

  
"Your clutching your side." Magda said, kneeling down by the side of the cot and yanking up Adega's shirt before she could do anything to stop her. Adega's torso was more purple than not. And where she had suspected her broken ribs were, her flesh was swollen and tight looking. It looked worse than she thought it would. Maybe bacta wasn't such a bad idea after all. "Now lay back and shut up. I'm the medic here, and I say you need this."

  
Adega resisted the urge to whimper when Magda stuck the needle into her bruised torso. It wasn't a particularly fun experience, but as soon as Magda hit the plunger on the syringe, she began feeling better.

  
"Thanks." Adega said, letting her body go slack and laying back on the cot, her one not-swollen eye beginning to shut.

  
"Not a problem." Magda said. "Now, you need to rest. Don't worry about anything right now. Tomorrow you will have plenty of time to explain. But right now you just need to sleep, okay?"

  
"Yeah." Adega said, almost delirious now. "I think I can do that."

 

 

***

 

  
_Adega was exhausted. No, more than exhausted. She didn't have words for how tired she was. She flopped onto the dirty ground outside of the brand new shelter and shut her eyes. She could feel her heart damn near beating out of her chest. She wanted to take a nap right then and there, but there was still more work to be done, and she was only allowed a half an hour rest._

  
_The first day on a new world they intended to camp out on was always busy, but this was her first time helping with construction. Before she had watched her mother and uncles work. They sang old battle hymns in Mando'a as they went and Adgea would sit and sing along. She knew the worlds to every song by heart, but still relished every time she got to hear them sung by her mother. Hotdma-Sol had a voice that was a gift from the gods. Everyone said so, even her brothers, who usually just picked on her. Adega had been a little sad that today she'd have to work instead of sit and watch, but she was also excited to contribute, to learn. She wanted to do her clan proud, to live up to those battle hymns. And sometimes that included tasks that weren't quite as flashy as fighting with her staff and blaster._

  
_A wet nose prodded her on the cheek, and she opened her eyes. It was Smokey, her favorite of the clan's pack of Anoobas, big hounds that they used for tracking and hunting. They were scary creatures with big snarling teeth, but they were gentle with the children. She crinkled her nose and laughed when she saw Smokey and patted his head. The hound curled up next to her and rested his chin on her belly._

  
_"You tired too, Smokey?" She asked the hound. He didn't respond, much to Adega's dismay. She knew that Anooba's weren't sentient, that they weren't capable of speech, but she didn't accept it. Smokey was her best friend and if she were ever granted a wish, it would be that he could speak._

  
_She gazed up at the dark sky. It was so strange to her, this darkness. Right now, it was high noon. There should be sun, but there wasn't. Gorse was dark all of the time. Televin, her older brother, was pretty irritated by this fact. He like the sun. She never understood why. Working as hard as they just had was exhausting enough, but add the heat of a sun? Forget it. She preferred this. Plus, the eternal night was mysterious. Adega liked mysterious._

  
_"What're you laying down for?" Televin asked, sitting down next to her and taking a big swig off a water canteen._

  
_"Ni cuy haryc." She said with an over exaggerated sigh, Mando'a for 'I'm tired.'_

  
_Televin scoffed. "Shouldn't have woke up so early, then." Adega rolled her eyes. She didn't have time for this today. Usually her and Televin got along great, but he'd been in a disagreeable mood lately. Her aunt Tacya had told her that it was because he was a teenager, and teenagers were always rude. She doubted that. She wouldn't ever be that rude to her little siblings. When she was thirteen, her sister Adnama would be around her age. She decided now that when they got there, she'd only be nice to Adnama, and Roiya after her. She'd be the nicest older sister ever, and the best role model they could have. She'd teach them how to fight with a staff and how to sew up the holes in their trousers themselves. She already couldn't wait to fill the roll of helpful, if sometimes bossy, older sibling._

  
_"Sucuy'gar Adega, Televin." Uncle Anker said, approaching the kids and sitting down on the dirt with them. He took off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow. He'd been working with them all morning, too, and much harder then they had been. "Me'vaar ti gar?"_

  
_"Okay." Adega said with a shrug. "Tired, mostly."_

  
_"Ah," Anker said with a nod. "I am too, Ad'ika. But all this hard work will feel good at the end of the day when we're sleeping in out new shelters, won't it?"_

  
_"Elek, that's true." She agreed. She was looking forward to the night. They would cook a big feast of traditional Mandalorian dishes, and the whole clan would sit around the table and eat and drink late into the night. If she was lucky, she'd even be allowed a small mug of black ale. They'd sit around the table singing and sharing stories until everyone was exhausted. Then she'd get to sleep under cozy blankets with Smokey curled up next to her. She smiled at the thought._

  
_"Come on, sit up Adega, no laying about." Anker said with a smile and an outstretched hand. "Let's get a drink of water and then get back to work, elek?"_

  
_"Okay." Adega said, taking her uncle's hand. He helped her up and they dusted the dirt off of themselves._

  
_He replaced his helmet and gave a little laugh. "Mandalorians don't collapse until the job is done."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so much of Mandalorian culture isn't canon anymore but I operate under the 'canon until proven not' belief. this book takes place in new canon because the timeline is very organized, but uses a whole lot of legends lore because, let's be honest, it's far superior in that aspect. thank you so much for reading!!


	7. Chapter 7

Adega awoke to the sun rising. The material that the tent was made out of wasn't thick, and as soon as the sun crested the hills it lit the little valley where the rebel camp was. Adega was groggier than she usually was in the morning. She suspected that it was a mixture of having nearly died and drugs Magda had filled her with after she'd passed out. She wasn't complaining, though. She felt good. Floaty, maybe. Like there was still a little medicinal spice in her system. Adega was vehemently against prescription drugs, in a recreational sense. As a teenagers she'd drank a lot, and done a lot of drugs. She'd never seen anything wrong with it, until friends of her had met untimely ends. Her opinion of spice had changed. She vowed to never touch the stuff again, street or medicinal, for recreational use. But, this was a little different. She was legitimately hurt. She'd let herself enjoy the high while it lasted.

  
She shakily propped herself up in the cot and found that her ribs felt better. Not healed, but better. Maybe she could move her torso a little bit without crying. She didn't want to test it, though. She'd just wait until it was necessary.

  
"Good morning." A voice said from behind her. She turned her head to see who it was. The voice was unfamiliar, as was the speaker. Behind her at a little collapsible table sat a Gran, a coffee mug in one hand and a datapad in the other.

  
"Yeah." Adega said in a sleepy morning voice. "Jate vaar'tuur. G'morning." She rubbed her eyes and blinked the sleep out of them. That's when she realized that her left eye wasn't swollen shut anymore. Thank the gods for that, at least.

  
"What language was that?" another voice asked. Adega hadn't even noticed that Yaiya, the Mirialan girl, was sitting at the table across from the Gran. She was drinking a mug of caf and hand stitching a grey garment together.

  
"Mando'a." She answered, and she didn't know why. She hoped Yaiya wouldn't ask any follow up questions. She didn't like talking about Mando'a or her family or any of it. And the only reason she'd spoken it was because she was a little high and a little concussed still. She never spoke Mando'a anymore otherwise. There wasn't much of a point.

  
"Huh." Yaiya said. "You must be hungry, yeah? Want some breakfast? Some caf?"

  
Adega's mouth watered. "Hell yeah." She warily stood up, finding her legs a little shaky but not as bad as yesterday. After the medicine wore off, she'd probably be walking just fine. These backwater Rebels were pretty decent when it came to healing. She sat down at the table and before she could even say anything Yaiya had poured her a tall mug of caf and rolled a meiloorun fruit across the table to her.

  
"How do you take your caf?"

  
"Black, thanks."

  
"Probably better that way." She said. "The powdered creamer we have is, well...not that great." Yaiya smiled and shrugged. Adega liked this girl. She was nice. Enthusiastic. These days, most people involved with the Rebellion had a hard time smiling about simple things. They were all to paranoid and depressed. She was happy that this teenage girl was at least trying.

  
"So. Adega." The Gran said. "That's your name, right? That's what Yaiya told us."

  
"Yeah. Lieutenant Adega Ijaakara, at your service." She chuckled and took a gulp of her caf. It was good caf. None of that instant garbage they had on the base. She had missed that taste so dearly.

  
The Gran set down his mug. "I'm Urogo. I guess you'd say I'm in charge around here, though we're more of a collective out her on the fringes than you're used to."  
"S'fine. I'm still getting used to this whole 'chain of command' thing myself."

  
"What happened out there, Lieutenant?" Urogo asked, almost like he didn't want an answer. "We've had no transmissions from the Alliance for days. That, and we've heard talk of top-priority Imperial alerts. Their bounty prices for Rebel fugitives have gone up. All Imperial patrols are to stop and detain anyone in specific makes of ships. We know something is happening. Something..." He trailed off.

  
"Galaxy altering?" Adega asked.

  
"Yeah." He nodded. "I guess so."

  
"Well. You'd be right." She said. "I don't even know where to begin, to tell ya the truth."

  
"The beginning?" Urogo shrugged.

  
"Yeah." Adega laughed. "I guess that works. Well, It goes like this. I've been on Yavin 4 for about six months. There's always been this electric energy in there air there, you know? But the last few days? Tensions were higher than normal. I didn't know why because I'm just a Lieutenant, you know? But then my flight commander dragged me into this meeting..." She trailed off and her eyes glazed over. She'd lived it, experienced it, but it still seemed so completely unreal. "They have this weapon." Adega said, looking up and nodding. "It's like nothing I've ever heard of before. We got intel that it could destroy planets. Whole planets."

  
"What?" Urogo asked, all of his many eyes wider than they had been before.

  
"Yeah." Adega said. "I know that it sounds crazy, but I saw it. Or, I saw the bast at least. Anyways, this meeting. That's when we heard that there was a way to destroy it. There was some debate about that, but ultimately we ended up throwing in our chips. We went to capture the schematics. I was in the battle up in space, defending the fleet. I almost got away clean, but my ship took damage right before I jumped to lightspeed. I didn't want to go straight back to base in a broken ship. I was worried I wouldn't make it all the way and my coordinates could be found by the Empire. So I had my droid punch in some for a world with a known Rebel presence, somewhere I could find refuge. And here I am."

  
"And the schematics? for the weapon?" Yaiya asked, a tremble in her voice.

  
"We got them, I think." Adega said with a heavy sigh. "But who knows if they made it back to base. I don't know what happened after I jumped. For all I know, they already burned a hole through Yavin 4 with that new toy for theirs." She gulped down her caf. She didn't know what their reactions would be to her story. It was hard to believe, and unfortunately true.

  
"Wow." Urogo said, seemingly at a los for words. "You saw this thing?"

  
"Yeah." Adega said. "Big as a planet. I saw the blast they hit Scarif with. More green light than you can believe. Never seen anything like it in my life."

  
"I need to tell the others." Urogo said and stood up.

  
"Wait, I'll come with you."

  
"No." He stopped her. "You're hurt. Stay here with Yaiya. I'll talk to the others. We'll be back soon to talk plans. Please, eat, take it easy...You've been through enough." He exited the tent, and Adega noticed his hands shaking on his way out. Maybe this was too much to drop on them all at once, but she didn't really know a better way to do it. She was a pilot, not a diplomat.

  
"Holy hell." Yaiya said, shaking her head. "Dude. Are you, like, okay? I mean, I know you aren't okay. But...wow. I don't even know what to say to someone who's gone through that."

  
"S'okay." Adega shrugged. "I wouldn't either. It's some pretty fragged up stuff."

  
"Ha. You can say that again." Yaiya nodded. "Man. Do you need anything? Want anything? Really, anything I can do to make this less hellish for you, I'll do."

  
Adega smiled. She was liking this girl more and more. "Actually. Anyone around here smoke? I could really use a cigarra right now."

  
Yaiya smiled. "My mother did. I think there's a pack in some of her old stuff." She stood up and exited the tent on quick feet.

  
Adega took inventory of her injuries. Her face felt less swollen, both her eyes opened. She couldn't, however, breathe through her nose yet. Her torso was still all black and blue but it was beginning to turn yellow around the edges. She could move her stomach muscles, but twisting was still too painful. Her hearing was almost back to her level of normal, thank the stars. All in all, after having nearly died less than forty eight hours before, she was doing pretty damn good. She took a grateful swig of caf and gently leaned back. Maybe everything would turn out alright.

  
"Here." Yaiya said, reentering the tent. She slid a slightly crumpled old pack of cigarras across the table towards Adega. "Those okay for you? They're kind of old, and I know that sometimes people are particular about brands, but--"

  
"--These're just fine." Adega said with a smile as she took one out of the pack. "Thanks, Yaiya. You're an actual lifesaver."

  
"Glad I could help." Yaiya chuckled.

  
"Hey," Adega said with an exhale of smoke. "You know what's going on out there yet? I don't wanna be pushy or anything, but this whole ordeal has already left me a little bit anxious, you feel?"

  
"I most definitely feel." Yaiya said with a nod. "I don't know what's happening. They're all in the ship, discussing it all I guess. I caught a few words while I snuck to my bunk for the cigarras. They were talking about this superweapon."

  
"They believe me?" Adega asked.

  
"Yeah. We all believe you. It's just hard to wrap out heads around." Yaiya turned inward a little and sighed. "We've all lost so many people already. The idea that they could have this kind of power? I don't know how I'll ever sleep again."

  
"Well." Adega said, trying her best to lighten the mood. "A good head injury will do it, if you're really desperate."

  
Yaiya smiled. "Your life sounds hectic."

  
"It is." Adega said with a snort. "Worth it though, I guess. I feel unqualified a lot. And like I'm in over my head. But they needed pilots, you know? How was I supposed to ignore that call to action, or whatever you want to call it."

  
"I know what you mean." Yaiya nodded. "I mean, on a smaller scale, but it's similar. When the Imperials took over our farms, my family was one of the first to resist. I'd never shot a blaster before then, but all of a sudden we were fighting stormtroopers and stuff. I guess I learned to adapt but..." She trailed off. Adega knew what she meant, no further words were needed.

  
"It's aight, Yaiya." Adega said, trying her best to give a kind smile. "I know exactly what you've been through. Nearly everyone in the rebellion does."

  
Yaiya sighed and finished the rest of her caf. "I'm going to make an omelette. You want an omelette?" She stood up and turned towards a makeshift kitchen they had set up behind the table.

  
"Yeah." Adega replied. "Why not?" It had been longer than she could remember since she'd had a real meal. And she'd never pass up breakfast food.

  
"Whenever things get weird, I cook." Yaiya explained as she turned on a portable electric stove top. "I guess it's something to put my anxious energy into, you know? And no one really objects. Everyone here at camp loves my cooking." She cracked open eggs into a pan and threw in some spices.

  
"Understandable." Adega nodded. "I draw when I have too much nervous energy. It doesn't really benefit anyone else the way cooking does, but it serves the same purpose for me."

  
"You're an artist?" Yaiya asked with a smile, turning around to meet Adega's eyes.

  
"I wouldn't go that far." Adega laughed. "I draw, but it's just sketches really. Nothing too fancy."

  
"Still," Yaiya said, turning back around to get back to her cooking. "I want to see it someday. You got a holonet page or something?"

  
Adega laughed. "Nah, I don't really have time for that sort of thing these days. Plus, we have pretty tight security on Yavin 4. I doubt I could even access stuff like that."

  
"Makes sense I guess." Yaiya shrugged and slid an omelette out of her pan and onto a disposable plate. "Here it's the same. We just have the communications blister that you called us on. No holonet or nothing. It bugged me at first, but now I like it, sort of. Gives me more time to focus and whatnot. How do you want you're omelete? Cheese? Meat? Veggies?"

  
"Cheese and veggies sounds good to me."

  
"Cool." Yaiya broke fresh eggs over the pan. "What kind of food do you eat at the Rebel base?"

  
"Rations, mostly. Sometimes we get something better in but it's rare. I mostly live off of caf and protein bread."

  
"Damn. That sounds gross."

  
"It is." Adega stubbed out her cigarra on the bottom of her boot and lit another. "But it's okay. We're so busy all the time that we're rarely thinking about food, honestly. Things go so fast on base that you aren't really thinking about much of anything, besides the things you have to do."

  
"That sounds kind of fun. In an exhausting sort of way."

  
Adega snorted. "It is, kind of. Collapsing back into bed after a more than full day of work feels good. And the work that we're doing? It's about as important as it gets."

  
Yaiya shut off the stove top and slid Adega's omelette out onto another disposable plate. She set it in front of her and refilled her caf. Adega still couldn't smell anything, due to her smashed nose, but she guessed the food smelled good. It looked good, anyways. She took a bite and almost cried.

  
"It might be because I haven't eaten real food in half a year," Adega said through a full mouth. "But this is the best damn omelette I've ever eaten in my whole life."

  
Yaiya smiled. "Not the first time I've heard that. If I'm good for anything, it's cooking."

  
"You deserve an award." Adega said. Yaiya just laughed.

  
"Lieutenant." A voice said from the doorway. Adega turned her head to see Urogo, followed by an entourage which included Little Gold.

  
"At ease, dude." She said. "You can just call me Adega if you want."

  
"Adega." Urgo smiled as he lead his posse into the tent. There were seven organics total, she saw now. The Duros she met yesterday, Magda, Urogo, Yaiya, two young human men and a Twi'lek woman. They had an assortment of droids, too, all old and rusted. They took seats at and around the table. Adega noticed that most of the farmers looked like they'd just seen a ghost. They were silent and tight. She couldn't really blame them, with the bomb she had just dropped. Little Gold wheeled her way to Adega's side and she patted her little friend on the head. It was good to have her droid by her side again, one familiar comfort through this whole hellish senario.

  
"I caught everyone up on you're situation, and we want to do everything we can to help you, and help the Alliance." Urogo said.

  
"Glad to hear it." Adega said.

  
"You have the coordinates for the Rebel base, yes? You know how to get there, you have the clearance codes?"

  
"Little Gold does." She said, patting the droid on the head again.

  
"Good." Urogo nodded. "Iylvah here is our pilot." He gestured to the Twi'elk woman, who gave a little wave. "She's going to take you back to the Alliance."

  
"But not before we heal you up." Magda interjected.

  
Urogo sighed. "Yes, we think tomorrow is a good idea. We'll get the ship ready, you eat and rest. We'll take care of everything."

  
Adega scratched her head. "I'm feeling fine, honestly. I can help you with whatever you need to get ready. I'm a decent mechanic, you know--"

  
"--Adega, no. You need to rest yourself." Magda said. "Clearly you're new to Saleucami hospitality, but get used to it. You're our guest and your injured. Sit. Eat. You'll be out of here first thing in the morning. It's really not that long a wait."

  
Adega sighed and leaned back. "Yeah. Yeah, alright. Tomorrow morning. I can live with that." She could, she supposed. It really wasn't all that bad. But Adega just couldn't shake the feeling that the longer she stayed, the more likely it was that something would go wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> female friendships stop for no war!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm super nervous and not at all confident about my writing but I'm been playing around with these characters for years now and figured if not now, when? Encouragement is needed, leave a comment!


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